An Amazing Weekend!!!!

I just had one of the THE most amazing weekends EVER!!!!

I mentioned in my post last week about winning a treasury challenge...so I had to choose an item from my etsy shop as the inspiration item for everyone to use in this week's challenge treasuries. 

And I chose....(drum roll)...

Beach Cottage Lap Blanket -- Aqua/Turquoise, Cream, Driftwood, Stone colors in Organic Cotton -- Crochet All Season Afghan

I had to judge all the treasuries, chose my fav for the winner and include at least 5 honorable mentions by 6pm Saturday night, with a write up sent in by 6pm Sunday night.  I can't show them here until after tomorrow, so watch for them at the end of this week.

Now I enjoyed every minute of it, but....we left early Thursday morning for our NBHA (National Barrel Horse Association) Ohio State Finals.   It was a 2 1/2 hour drive , then had to get three horses settled in their stalls, then ready to exersize and exhibition...as soon as I finished with that and put my horse away, I had to go back and work the exhibition from 2pm-10pm (I did get to take a dinner break)...then worked it again Friday morning from 7am-11am.  The open class started at noon and I was the 38th draw to run.  So it was rush, rush, rush....and in between, I was booting up the puter to look through the challenge treasuries....I really had a blast!!!

Which brings me to the 2nd best thing that made my weekend awe-some...
In the finals, you get two runs to make it into the final on Sunday... in years past I never made it in on the first run...but I did this year...my horse finished 15th out of 330!

Then in the final on Sunday, we finished with the title of NBHA Ohio State Open 2D Reserve Champion.....(lots of whooping and hollering going on here).

Here's the vid of my winning run...it's not perfect...I let him drift out coming up the alley, then I didn't help him close the 2nd barrel, completely forgot to get both hands on the reins heading for the 3rd....so I've still got a lot of improvements I need to work on.

This is such a huge, mega, stupendous accomplishment for all the years of work "Red" (TNT Red Money) and I have been doing, not to mention all the training my hubby did on him before I stole him.  And when I broke my foot and ankle last year, my daughter kept him going the whole season.

I hope everyone in blogland had an amazing weekend as well...and here's one last pic for you to enjoy (I simply fell in love with it, it's so appropriate for the holiday weekend).

Rainy Day Horse Play

In February of 2010, I posted pics of a couple of our horses playing in a winter storm, you can see that post and those photos HERE.

Yesterday morning, I was lucky and caught these two playing during the rain (enough with the rain already!)...so of course they are both very muddy from rolling around in all the lovely mud we have here at the farm.

The palomino is our 3-year old, Cooper (not his registered name), he still has most of his winter hair, and will be much darker when he shed off. His daddy is absolutely GORGE-OUS as a "chocolate palomino", I don't think Cooper will get that dark, but he'll still be beautiful when he sheds off.

If you want to see his daddy, here is the link... Fire on Bug pics

Cooper is always the play-instigator as you'll see him in both "play pics" postings...in this posting, he has bugged Dooger (pronounced Dew-jur) into messing around.

Dooger is our daughter's barrel horse, he is 16, she's been riding him since we purchased him as an 8 year old. As our daughter is pregnant this year, Dooger gets the year off to just be a horse, which I think he really needed.

Here's a little background info on Dooger:

Dooger was literally raised in a barn, meaning he was always kept in a stall except for training, excersizing and showing...he never had the opportunity to be in a field by himself or learned how to socialize with other horses. This created some challenges for us when we first brought him home, as our horses are turned out in the pastures every evening at dark in the summer, and they are turned out all winter, they only come into the barn to eat their grain rations, then back out they go. Although we will bring them in if sub-zero temps are predicted, which luckily we don't get a lot of in Ohio.

We've had several different veterinarians tell us that horses are much, much healthier if they can live outside as opposed to living in a barn. I personally think it's just downright cruel and inhumane to keep a horse locked in a stall 23 hours every-single-day!!! I've seen horses living in stalls in severe emotional distress, chewing their stalls down from boredom, not to mention the health issues that arise from it. Just think about them having to inhale all that stale dust all the time...and what problems that causes.

The first time we turned Dooger out into our small paddock, he had no idea what to do, he didn't explore, he couldn't find the creek...we had to lead him around and show him everything, it was really sad. But this guy has really opened up and relaxed in the past 8 years

And Dooger is a horse that truly LOVES his job, racing around the barrels...we've often joked that he would load himself in the trailer on show days....and guess what, HE DID! When loading up to head to a show, we always load Dooger last as he takes his own sweet time backing out of the trailer, so if he's the last one on the trailer, then he gets to be the first one off, lots quicker than if he was at the front of the trailer.

A couple of years ago, hubby went out to load everyone while I was packing up to go, he loaded Finnegan first, then went to get Red who is always second, but when he went in Red's stall with the halter, he realized he was in Dooger's so he backed out and forgot to latch the stall door, so he went to put the halter on Red, led him to the trailer, and lo and behold, there was Dooger! Already loaded in Red's spot, without a halter on!!!

Dooger had pushed the stall door open with his nose, walked out of the barn, turned right and walked down the driveway 20 feet to the back of the horse trailer, then had to make a left U-turn to hop in the back. When my hubby got to the back of the trailer and looked inside, Dooger just looked at him as if to say, "Tie me up, I'm ready". Sooooo, hubby tied Red to the side of the trailer, went back to the barn for Dooger's halter and just left Doog in Red's spot for that trip. So, YES, this horse actually loaded himself for that day's competition. Totally true story, no exaggeration!!!!

Here is another Doog (we tend to shorten his name most of the time) story...

You'll notice a lot of horses that you see standing in a field look like they are asleep on their feet, but they are actually just dozing....to really go to sleep they have to lay down, and a horse won't lay down to go to sleep unless he feels safe. Horses in the wild will lay down to sleep as long as there is another one standing guard, so if you see a field of horses, you'll never see all of them laying down at the same time...(just a little fact I thought you might find interesting)...but I needed to include it so you'll understand the rest of this story.

Dooger never, ever layed down to sleep, so what started happening was that he would doze off standing up then fall completely asleep, and if a horse falls completely asleep on his feet, his knees give out, so Dooger would then fall down nose first into the dirt. Yep, we watched it happen a few times before calling the vet and having him explain that this was exactly what was happening. So over the years we've watched it happen over, and over, and over again...and as soon as he falls, he either jumps right back up and proceeds to do it again, or he rolls over and acts like he's scratching his back before jumping back up.

I know, strange...but Doog is the absolutely best horse to have around, he has the best ground manners...stands for grooming and saddling, he stands without complaint all day at a competition, he's a dream to doctor (when he gets a cut), doesn't even flinch when receiving his vaccinations. The only thing he really hates is getting his teeth cleaned, narcotics are definitely called for to get that job done.


This past winter we pastured him with Cooper for the first time and Dooger LOVES Cooper....for the first time in 8 years, Dooger is finally laying down to sleep. I guess he just never felt safe enough with the other horses to let his guard down to lay down. But for some reason with Cooper, he does. It might sound silly but I was so very happy the first time I looked out and saw Dooger asleep, laying flat out in the sun. He's much more relaxed this year, his eyes just have a more joyful look to them (he always had a serious look in them before).

Cooper has even helped Dooger learn to play, have fun and act young again.




I hope you'll enjoy these stories and pics as much as I've enjoyed sharing them. In the following pic...Dooger is telling Cooper, "Enough, I'm done playing..."

I'd love to hear your pet stories, please feel to share them in the comments section...

Can you feel the love in this pic???

A Roller Coaster Week

You've probably noticed my absence the past few days....this past week has been an absolute roller coaster ride for our family.

On Monday, our daughter and son-in-law had a doctor's appointment for an ultrasound that would hopefully tell us what they are having....so Grandpa (my hubby) and I went along to learn the good news. Welllllll, the doc didn't see any boy parts, but doesn't like to say it's a girl unless he sees girl parts, and with the little critter bouncing all over the place like a ping pong ball, he had trouble getting a good "butt shot"...he thought he saw the girl parts, but not well enough to call it. He's calling it a "girl" with the option of changing his mind when she goes back in 4 weeks for the next ultrasound.

I'm calling "her" our little alien baby as to me that's exactly what "she" looks like in this pic (the left eye is directly under the word left, with the right eye directly below the left eye and you'll notice to the right of the eyes is the little pointy chin....her right upper arm is directly above where I've typed in right arm) So to me..."alien baby" since I can't really call it/him/her a girl yet!

Even without finding out for sure what they are having, it was still very exciting and was definitely the "UP" part of our roller coaster week!

Now for the "DOWN" part....

"Jimmie"

(In this photo is "JIMMIE" with my hubby giving Gus his first horseback ride, video at end of article)

Meet Jimmie...our daughter and her hubby purchased him last July, he was to be HER first horse (meaning mom and dad didn't own him). We all fell in love with Jimmie when we saw him run the barrels at the NBHA Ohio State Finals last July 4th weekend. He was just a 4 year old at that time and had been run in a couple futurities, but still needed a lot of work. So they purchased him and brought him to our farm for her dad to continue with his training which he did the rest of last summer and fall. Her plans were for him to continue the training this year, then maybe she'd start showing him later in the season....but.... she found out at christmas she was "expecting" and knew she wouldn't be able to ride this year, was okay with that as he'd just get more training with dad and be even better for her next year.

What is that saying about the best laid plans???

Anyone in the horse business knows that horses are not the most healthy of animals, and Murphy's Law is always in effect. Take an old horse with no pedigree or specialized training, just out in the field munching on grass -- he's considered a "yard ornament" and NEVER has any health issues. Now take the horse with a great pedigree, awesome conformation, speed (very important for a barrel horse), spend some money on him, vaccinate him, have his teeth taken care of by a professional equine dentist, feed him all sorts of healthy vitamin supplements, regular vet care, specialized feed, (lot's of training, money and work is going into this horse, not to mention the bonding happening as you work with your "partner")....You can probably see where this is going...

After the ultrasound appointment on Monday morning, we had to hurry home as our equine dentist was scheduled to be here to float (file) Jimmie's teeth as he had started having trouble eatting his grain in the past week...when we brought him into the barn, he just looked SICK, all over sick, his coat was dull, his eyes sunken with discharge, he had lots, I mean lots of discharge coming from his nostrils and mouth....so we thought he had a tooth that had abcessed and were thankful the dentist was due any minute.

Dentist arrives, takes care of the teeth, which really were sharp, plus removed a cap (baby tooth that had not fallen out) that was making his gum very sore, so this certainly explained him having trouble eatting, but he thought he might have a sinus infection (I've gotta admit, I didn't even know horses could get sinus infections).

Next call, the vet..scheduled to come out the next morning which was Tuesday....vet arrives, Jimmie has not consumed any grain or hay or water, although he tried and we figured his mouth must be sore from the dentist, so we're really not worried yet. Vet checks for an impaction in the intestine and can find none, he IS dehydrated, not surprising, she then tubes him (tube up his nostril and into his stomach)...she gives him lots of saline water with added vitamins, some pepto and other things to help with his dehydration and to help soothe his tummy in case it was bothering him...she determined that he had a "choking episode"...this is where a horse maybe takes too large a mouthful of hay or grain without enough saliva and it ends up balling up in their esophagus where it enters the stomach, this would have caused the discharge from his nostrils and eyes. To learn more about "choke" check out this link Choke in Horses

But....

She is worried about how depressed he is...she thinks there is something else going on that caused the "choke" in the first place. She takes blood, mentions a couple different causes and leaves us with instructions and the recommendation to get him to a vet hospital if he gets worse or doesn't improve within 24 hours.

Okay, time to start worrying....we make his stall as comfortable as possible, make a quick dash to the local feed store for some expensive alfalfa pellets that we make into a mushy mash hopefully to entice him to eat as he needs to rebuild his strenth. We notice really quickly that he is going down hill fast and needs to get to the vet hospital.

Enter MURPHY'S LAW....our pickup was in the shop, and our son-in-law was on his way back from out west picking up a horse trailer for someone else, so we had to wait until he arrived and while we waited we called the vet hospital to give them the heads up.

As soon as Brian arrived, they loaded Jimmie up and took off for the 45 minute drive. The hospital started him on intravenous fluids and said they'd call the next morning. And call they did with the prognosis....Rabies OR Botulism, but the vet was pretty sure Botulism, which is FATAL. To learn more about botulism, check out this link Botulism in Horses

The vet recommended humane euthanasia, so as of Wednesday, March 30th at approximately 11:30am, Jimmie was put to rest.

Our family has gone from the highest of highs, to the lowest of lows in the space of 3 days...we lost a family member. Our grief is not just from the money that was spent and lost, it is more from the loss of a wonderful partner that showed awesome potential. We are grieving the loss of his future possiblities, the future that he won't be a part of now and how we are already missing his truly sweet personality, his soft eyes and his easy going and loving disposition. I've included a video of one of his last runs from last October, hopefully even if you don't know horses or barrel racing, you'll be able to see a small glimpse of the possiblility of what he could have been. It is by no means a perfect run or even close to perfect, he still had a lot of work to do and a lot to learn, but it is still enjoyable and you can see how much he enjoys what he's doing (both he and my hubby that is).