Wednesday weather update........

The mares are so funny, they are all but impossible sometimes to get pictures of, they always have to come and see if I have cookies. See all the water around Emma in the first pic.? It has all gone down now, its not drying out and there still is a lot of snow to melt.Got cookies mom?

Any cookies mom? I gues it could be worse LOL I could not have friendly horses.

I tried the next day too and I had both of them coming to check me out, and rather disappointed I didnt have any cookies. Looks like I still need to mess with settings on my new camera, these look a little dark. I love how it shows so much detail ie Emmas wooly coat.

Easy, she just stands off to the side and waits for you to bring it to her, if she doesnt decide to run away LOL goofy old bat.

Vintage horse jewelry

http://www.broadwaterrosejewels.com/Horse%20Jewelry.htm

found this neat vintage jewery site, I just love this kind of stuff.

Easy, aka Pines Bundle, second installment.

Pines Bundle is Easy's registered name, not much creativity there, she is out of Pines Get and Fancy Bundle. Pines Get is a Poco Pine son out of Poco Bueno. That is her only claim to fame, the rest of her bloodlines are racing lines. She is 15.1, and 1000lbs. She failed as a cutting horse candidate because of her flighty nature. She is a highly nervous horse, and a little unconfident. She has always been hard to catch. I used to have to, at my folks house, open the back barn door and just go out and follow her around until she gave up and finally went in the barn, took patience. She still runs from us in the field, she got a lot better after Meghan did some Parelli with her, but I am getting ahead of myself. She has the name "Easy" as in e-a-s-y girl, because of her nervous nature. Its funny with Moms geldings she is boss mare, but with my mares she is bottom of the totem pole.

In 1990 I married my currant husband, and him not a horse person, to his credit he tried, but it just isnt his thing. Meghan was born in 1991.

I rode Easy for a few years, took her out to a stable and cleaned stalls for board, with Meghan in a backpack on my back. Either that our she would sleep in the stroller in the tack room. Until she got to big and wouldn't stay put and I had to quit. I used to clean about 23 stalls a day for 75cents a stall, board was $170. mo. I spent a lot of riding time on her, she is great on the trails and always ready to go. She is a great huntseat horse, the girls never developed a love for huntseat. I once had a jumping trainer compliment her on her mind. I was riding in the arena when they were practicing, and going right next to a jump when someone was going over it, she never flinched or sped up or anything. She does have a good mind, when worked with regular, LOL. After our time at the barn she went back to my folks house. Dad wouldn't sell her to me, much to my disappointment.

We did a lot of trail riding with Easy and Dusty, Mom and I went to a fundraiser poker ride up in Lyle WA in 1989, had a blast, seen beautiful country, had John on behind me and Mom had Sara behind her, they were 3 and 4 at the time. Easy is an absolutly awsome trail horse, she will go through, around and over anything she is asked to, and she is always the one we send first when the others refuse. Kinda funny for a flighty nervous horse huh.

In about 1995 when Sara was 9, she started riding Easy. She was finally old enough to do 4-H! so we started an 11 year 4-H career. Arent they cute!

There is a lot more to the story..........

Easy's story......

My Dad bought Easy in 1989, at the same time I moved home with them after leaving my first drug addict husband. He bought her for $500 and she has been a really good horse for that price, not without difficulties, but a good horse. I dont think there is a horse that comes without difficulties.

Easy was 4 in '89, and she had a lot of baggage, on her papers are 7 owners before she was 2, and 2 owners after that, and then us. Dad bought her from my husbands cousin, who bought her from a friend. Friend had purchased her at Hermiston aution, I think, her papers say she was off of Harmony ranch in Walla Walla WA. She must have been through there a few times, anyway he cowboyed her and tied cans to her saddle and sacked her out etc, his kids had named her Sabrina. He didnt have much luck with her. Cousin bought her and the first time he rode her she bucked him off, thats where my dad came in. I never did now if Dad bought her to keep me home or what, but I had a horse to train now, and a 2 and 3 year old to raise too. Soon after I moved out I got together with my currant Hubby, much happier story.

Dad brought Easy home and we started working with her, she was pretty green, despite someone saying she had 60 days on her with some trainer, but she was broke for the most part. Dad always buys a horse from the ground up, that Farrier thing, and Easy had good clean legs, she still does to this day at 24. I remember the first time I took her off of the property, my friend and I were on a dirt road somewhere and she wanted to trot or canter, anyway Easy bucked with me and by the time I stepped off and seen where she went, she was stopped with her head and bridle caught in a thorn tree, LOL. I think that is one of the only times she has ever bucked with me. Anyway I got her out of the tree and got back on and we finished our ride. She has a trot that is amazing, LOL she could have pulled a sulky LOL not. but she can trot fast. I rode her western and huntseat, I love riding her huntseat, that should have been her discipline.

More about Easy tomorrow............

Ive been scrapped!

Jocelyn over at For The Love Of A Horse http://mylifewithstar.blogspot.com/ has scrapped me LOL now I have to think of some things about myself................



I get to tell you 10 things about myself.......



1. I have been married to a wonderful man for almost 19 years, Will be in June, my love, my strength and my best friend, and hunting and fishing buddy. Thank you for everything Rick.



2. I got my first pony when I was 5, and thats all she wrote! I have had horses under my skin ever since. LOL that one may be a little too obvious.



3. I have worked at 2 feed and farm stores for 8 years of my life, wonderful industry! I love trade shows and I was a tack buyer for one of them. I have worked in retail for 20 years. I have been a cashier mostly, some management(yeck), and I love sales, helping people find what they need and educating them if they want. I learned a lot about the feed and farm industry, and all kinds of animals.



4. My pipe dream is to ride cutting horses with William Shatner, he just seems like he would be a ball to hang out with, and if horses are involved, all the better, I am a Star Trek junkie, I love watching all the old and newer Star Trek series.



5. We live in a house that my in-laws built and my husband was born in. The house is an

A frame, timber frame home.



6. If I could live anywhere else in the world it would be north of Spokane WA a small town called Elk, is one I can think of. I have been up there a couple of times and its rolling hills and pine trees, and old farms, very pretty. oh geez and me complaining about the snow! LOL



7. My husband and I have hand built two different barns, just for my horses.



8. I dont want an IPOD, although hubby and Meg cant live without theirs LOL I just dont listen to very much music, although I do enjoy it. Growing up my Dad had a country western band and played the local taverns and stuff, I remember late night rehearsals that the band did on weekends.



9. My favorite author is Mercedes Lackey and her Valdemar series.



10. I would rather drive a truck than a car, just cant bring myself to drive a small car after my car wreck, I got hit head on by a drunk driver, whom I know, in 2002. The bigger the better.

Wow that one was a little heavy.



I did it I came up with 10 random things about myself!



I am not going to pass it on at this time, I am still learning who is who and I dont want to double tag someone to soon LOL.

It is melting s l o w l y.............

What a miserable trip out to the barn today, all the snow slid off of the roof, so there is a big pile, barn is 24x36, (so 15'plus x 36 six inches deep) or was, in front of the barn right now, we cant get the 2 wheel drive quad out there, it keeps getting stuck, so I was shoveling part of the "berm" we finally just brought the bronco out, it is chained up, and hooked the little garden cart to it with a chain, talk about over kill huh... any way we got one load from day before yesterday dumped and got the barn cleaned today, I dont know how long it took us, but it was a pain in the butt. Hopefully it will be easier tomorrow with more melting and we have packed down all the snow, the wheelbarrow is still full sitting in the barn, really hard to push or pull through, 6+ inches of slush now. It can not melt fast enough LOL, oh we cant have that, melting to fast that is, because it might flood now, what next, LOL at least we were one of the lucky ones so far and havnt lost power at all, so thats a positive thing, right? Uhg, we are not set up to deal with the snow for so long, not this much anyway. Sooo sorry no pics today, if I can lift my arms tomorrow I will share the thaw! LOL........
and Easy is our next horse.

The snow is melting, the snow is melting!!!!!!!!!........

Oh finally!!!!!!!, we ended up with a lot of snow for here, we are at about 98 feet in elevation here. We got about 12-14 inchs or so...... hard to tell with the wind blowing at times. This is the spot on the railing that I keep watch on how much has accumulated, the low spot stuff came on xmas eve day, about 3 1/2 inches, and it snowed hard all day on Christmas.

Meg, David and I went to my folks for Xmas dinner, Hubby had to work swing. This is what greeted us when we pulled in the driveway, Mom said she was feeling sorry for Dad out shoveling snow, but he was out playing and creating artwork LOL on one, he says, is a snowman, and on the other a bear, LOL what men do when they get bored after being snowed in!.

we had wonderful garlic prime rib and all the fixings for dinner, everyone thought I was weird for taking a pic of my food LOL

This is what Luxor did throughout the whole meal LOL, in between Meghan and David on the floor. Like his Xmas bandanna? He has done good learning to sleep where he is put.

And Luxor wasn't to impressed with the mountain of wrapping paper that covered him.

Christmas day we went to Hubbys oldest brothers house, they live right behind us on the same property. This is Meghan with her 95 year old great grandmother, and Grammy lives across the street. We had biscuits and gravy and sausage and bacon and french toast. Yum Yum.

This is Grammys house from our barn, across back yard and the lower field.

And the damn cat LOL she has claimed under the xmas tree for HER space, so much for my felt tree skirt. covered in cat hair, sigh..... this is Amber, who stays outside most of the time, she is our only cat because she runs any other cat that comes around off.

Everyone waiting for David to get here Xmas morning to open presents, Teddy is behind Meg.


This is what it was like in town today when we ran around a little bit, slush, slush and more slush, at least it is melting! Geez there were too many people out so we weren't out long.

We had a very good Christmas, miss the older kids but they will be home when they can, talked to them at least.

And I got a new camera! for Christmas This last pic is the first one off of it! and there will be many more as I learn to use it. And one of those mini HP printers for 4x6 prints, so cool! Hubby got a purple Ipod Nano, which he is thrilled with, and new romeos. Meg got a camera, a pick camo saddle pad, a pink steer head for roping and some money for clothes shopping.

Hope everyone else had a wonderful Christmas holiday, now we have to get through New Years LOL.

Christmas greetings, and recipe

Sending everyone warm wishes of less snow, have a safe and pleasant Christmas~

( this is a piece of artwork I did in 2002. (Look close it is done in pointalism,( dots)

The wife wanted the Rocha recipe, here it is.......

Almond or cashew (or?) Rocha

1 1/2 cups real butter

1 3/4 cups sugar

1/3 cup light corn syrup

1 1/2 cups chopped nuts

12 oz bag chocolate chips

Melt butter and sugar till dissolved. Add corn syrup, cook to 290 degrees (candy thermometer is important) stirring constantly. add 1 cup of the nuts. Spread on cookie sheet(fast) (spreads on cookie sheet easier with a wooden spoon) Sprinkle 12oz bag of choc. chips on top, wait a few minutes they will melt and spread it over the top, garnish with leftover nuts.

blogger wont let me space this post out ????

Last minute baking and a recipe....

Three pies and cashew Rocha yum! cant wait until the Rocha cools!

Pumpkin pie

Pumpkin apple pie, that I borrowed the recipe from a fellow blogger! Cant remember at the moment who it was, but thanks! cant wait to try it.

Apple pie, Meghans first, I let, no made her make it all by herself, top crust and all, Crust turned out really flaky, judging by the cinnamon and sugar treats we made with the left over crust, and she did really good! ( sorry bought the bottom shells in the pan frozen)

They have red plastic wrap on them, if they look funny.


And in these wrappers is Wackey Cake, a recipe my mother-in-law used to make for the boys. Middle brother doesnt like frosting so this is perfect. It will cure anyones chocolate craving, and the top crust gets just a little bit crunchy, We also made little cupcakes out of some of the batter.

These are for brother one and brother two (aka middle brother) LOL. Wackey cake has no dairy products in it for those who have a problem with that and no eggs either.







The recipe......



Wackey cake



small 8x8 pan, bake at 350 for 25 min



1 1/2 cups flour

1 cup of sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons cocoa

6 tablespoons oil

1 cup warm water

1 tablespoon white vinegar

1 teaspoon vanilla



Blend together with fork, pour in pan, and bake.

double recipe for 9x13 pan



Its simple and easy and not real sweet like regular chocolate cake.


And Emma says "wheres mine".

I am waiting to hear jingle bells.......

I love the sound of horse bells...... I sure wish a magical one would take us out to the barn LOL, we got another 3-4 inches of snow last night.

A lot more snow than yesterday, at least the wind has quit. There us probably 8 inches or so across the yard, hard to tell for sure, the wind drifted a lot of it.

Gotta love Meghans fashion! Luxor came out with us this morning.

Jessie and Luxor playing in the snow.

"And where is breakfast? oh human?" This is boss mare Mickey.

"I am going to hide out here until the humans go away" Easy she has to leave the stall every time she feels the least bit of pressure. Love the swirls, arent two together supposed to be a more difficult personality? She is that LOL I notice that Emma only has one and Mickey has two down low and one up high, didnt get a pic of Mickeys.

"Food, Food! FOOD!! why dont you have food?"

A little better after she got her hay, a cute pleasant expression. She is one of those horses that pins her ears until she gets what she wants, usually food LOL some people would think she could be mean, not, she is all bluff. I just love her little innocent face! She doesnt have a blanket on because she has the most protected stall and her hairfuzz, stands straight up and is about an inch and a half long, big fuzzbutt LOL And I mean that she is 14.3 and wears an 84 blanket,Not so much for the length but for the width too, I really need to measure her height again, last time I measured her she was 4.

I love how she has that white stripe on both sides of her mane.


Just gotta love the polka dot butt.... he he he he, LOL LOL. She gonna hate me for this LOL LOL
And back inside we go, everyone fed and watered and one stall that was a mess picked. LOL need to lite up those polka dots like the Christmas tree LOL LOL

Baby its cold outside.......and my rant of the day.

Ok I am officially sick of the snow! I poked my camera out long enough to get a pic of where we measure how much snow we received, problem is half of it has blown away!

Went out to check on the horses and was not happy, the daughter hasnt totally cleaned the stalls in at least 2 days grrrrrrr, so I had to dump the wheelbarrow and start cleaning, the wheelbarrow is so full that it is all but imposable to push it so I pull it through the snow grrrrrr, I try to tell her that they dont deserve this and it is a lot easier if you clean them every damn day!! "but Mom its been hard" ya I know it has been hard, thats why I have asked you every day if you need help, s i g h....... "no, everything is good" is what I have gotten the last few days. I start to get nervous when she doesnt want me to go out to the barn, for good reason I think.

The only thing I can do is get out there myself, try not to fall in the snow, with my disability it is really disorienting to walk out through the snow and blowing snow, and my balance is not the best, there is about 6+ inches across the yard with 1/4 inch of ice on top, the barn is over 100yards from the house, and its snowing again, at least its not freezing rain. This is the big fight we have even when the weather isnt bad, and it really makes me sad that she doesnt think they need better care. I dont know what to do 'cept like I said get my ass out there too, its difficult for me but if I want to keep my horses I have to be able to care for them, what am I going to do when she moves out? Take care of them myself, of course. I know I am ranting, but it just makes me so mad that she, as I see it is so lazy about taking care of the horses. Its all about the responsibility thing and earning the right to ride in equestrian team, its just not handed on a platter, she has to earn some of it.

The hubby doesnt help, his solution is to just get rid of the horses, that will solve everything. Not an option, unless I become so physically disabled that I cant take care of them, then it Will break my heart but I would find them new homes. Or maybe I could board one and not have to do all the manual labor stuff LOL. Its also about respecting the animals, they dont like to have to stand in their poop, anymore than we like to clean it up, it is a necessary evil, if you want horses.

Also she wants to ride someone elses horse this year for ET and I will not switch the horse until she proves she can take care of ours, to the standards I want. We were planning on taking Mickey up to there house to be out on pasture and bringing the gelding down here. Pretty soon I am just going to tell her no, and she will have to ride one of ours, period. All I want are the stalls cleaned daily, water, and food, and grooming when needed, which I have been checking, under blankets etc.

Oh teenagers, does anyone else have this kind of problem, and how have you dealt with it? Grounding, taking the cell phone away(is more of a pain for us while she is in school)taking things away, nothing works, so I nag and yell and get mad at her, The only thing left to do is tell her she is off of the team and no horses, but I really do want her to enjoy it and do it... like I said I dont know what to do. Sorry that is all of my rant, for now.......

A little more about Luxor.....

Luxor as a little puppy all dressed up to go out.

Luxor is our daughters Senior project. He is a guide dog puppy, and hopefully will go on to be a guide dog. We think he is going to be a breeder first though, as he is 13 mo. old and Guide Dogs has not fixed him yet. This is a really neat thing to do if you have the time to raise a puppy for Guide Dogs. http://www.guidedogs.com/ Here is the link to them if you are interested. Yes Luxor will be going back soon we dont know when, but sometime soon.

Here is Luxors Christmas picture, I made it into our Christmas card this year. It is the perfect dog torture picture with his eyes closed LOL.

When you take on a guide dog it is a big responsibility, this was at a training evaluation that he had, he passed with flying colors, it was a distraction test with a little dog. When they did the orientation for this test, there were 30 dogs in one room, and you couldnt hear a thing, these dogs are amazing!

This time we got to go over by the Portland airport, to the Horizon air training facility and Luxor got to be stuffed under and airplane seat. It is a partial plane in a warehouse, kinda weird.

I took a picture of this puppy because she was just so darn cute!

The only German Shepard in our club. She has left for training.

Luxor saying HI to his babysitter. When we have to go somewhere for an extended time, you ask for someone to take care of them for that time, we had gone to the fair for 5 days, and we didnt want to have him and a horse to deal with.We get to go on a lot of fun field trips too. Dad and Meg went to OMSI with Luxor for one. This is an excursion to the Pumpkin patch at BZ farms in Vancouver WA. I followed the kids through the corn maze.....

And we got to pick out pumpkins, Luxor was protesting his Halti (some people think its a muzzle, but it is relay like a horse halter) that the puppies wear, it is a good candid shot of him and Meghan.

Luxor got to play with one of the other puppies for awhile, the club had dinner for us after getting to explore the pumpkin patch and the corn maze, they had a lot of other activities too. We got to ride in a trailer behind a tractor out to the actual pumpkin patch.

And Luxor will carry anything that he thinks is special, here is a pom pom he got to carry around school. Right now he carries around his Santa hat. At Halloween he had a giant stuffed spider that he carried around school.

Luxor goes to school every day with Meghan, so he has gotten a lot of exposure to just about everything, he is so good in the grocery store or shopping, sometimes he is so quiet you dont know he is there. This whole thing has been such a fun experience so far, I know we will be sad when he goes back for training, but they will give us updates on his progress. I highly recommend it to anyone interested. We go to club meeting one time a month, and do a little training at each meeting. I am sure I will have more goofy Luxor pictures, if I havnt posted a few of these already.

He is the smartest dog is Luxor although Meghan says he is "dumb" LOL jokingly of course. I have never met a more visual dog, he watches TV, which isnt that extraordinary, but when we took him to the Vet for his hives he was actually looking at the pictures of dogs on the wall! That was strange LOL, most dogs just ignore that stuff. His and all the puppies personalitys and tractability, and trainability say a lot for Guide Dogs breeding program.

What the hubby does when I play with horses.....

This is what my Hubby loves to do, this first pic is quit a few years ago......"aint he cute" (sorry hun LOL)

One of the more successful trips that they have taken!! I think there were 3 of them(fishermen) in the boat. If you all havnt caught it yet we live by the Columbia River, and that is what these are, Columbia river white sturgeon. This is back when they could keep 2 each.

You have to measure each fish to make sure they are in the size requirments 42-60 inches.




This.......

Is what an over sized sturgeon looks like after youve fought it for a long time, I think this one was 9-10+ feet long, you can see Hubbys hand in its mouth, they do not have teeth. Last time I was with them when an over size was caught, she was so pretty she had dapple spots on her side! and was longer than the boat was wide! We figured about 9ft, you cant bring these in and measure them LOL, they weigh to much!

And releasing the over sized fish.

It is great fun to take kids fishing especially when they catch a fish, Master Bailey was a very happy fisherman!

Sorry hun I couldnt tell your eyes were closed! LOL Just blame it on the heavy fish you are holding.

A threesom this day, arent they cute! LOL LOL They eat well! I dont remember who caught all of these but they were happy!

This is oldest brother in-law, I have two, my hubby is the baby. He is in front of Hubbys boat, a lot of fish were caught in that boat, unfortunately he sold it last year. I promised him he could have another some day.

So this is what Hubby does every time he gets a chance, me, I go once and awhile, I dont like being stuck in the boat for that long, but it is fun on a summer day. But..... I do hunt with Hubby, but that is another story.