Honest scrap award!

Thanks to Catus Jack Splash and Rocky Mtn Yankee http://http://bevinnesthots.blogspot.com/ all gave me this great award!

If you receive this award you are supposed to credit the one (ones) who gave it to you, give it to 10 other blogs( let them know) and tell your readers 10 things about yourself they dont know.

The award is supposed to go to blog writers who speak honestly, from the heart.

Now, 10 things about me that readers dont know.

1. I have been married twice. The second time I did it right.

2. I have been around and riding horses for 40 years, geez thats a long time LOL.

3. I wanted to be a Veterinarian when I was in school, but my grades were no where good enough LOL

4. I have a younger sister that I dont get along with.

gee this is hard!

5. My favorite lunch is a tuna sandwich with sweet relish, nacho cheese Doritos and a Coke.

6. My husband and I went to school together from the 7th grade on.

7. My favorite TV shows are anything Star Trek! My kids think I am a nerd! LOL

8. My favorite sit com is Two and a half Men. It makes me laugh!

9. We live in the house that my Hubby was born in.

10. I had a grade 2 brain tumor, the size of a golf ball, (surgery 3-7-08) so far no recurrence, I still have a lot of deficits. One of those being a speech impediment.

That was hard!

I will have to give the passing on of this award some thought! I reserve the right for a post in the near future!

Bit post....some of my opinion on bits

There is a lot to know about bits, but it isnt as difficult as you might think, what is more difficult is figuring out what works for your horse.

I thought it might be fun to show you some of what I have in my tack room, instead of pulling stock photos from the Internet. This is most of my tack room wall, last summer I had Hubby bend all the old horseshoes I could find and make me all these hangers, and finally get it all organized.

In my opinion, there are only three basic kinds of bits. A curb, which is a bit with shanks. A snaffle, which is a direct pull bit, no shanks. The Gag bit, which I dont own so I may have to pull a pic, or have you do your own research on that one. There is a myriad of half breed and variations on these three bits, all I can say is if it has a shank it is a curb, direct pull as in an eggbutt snaffle, then it is a snaffle. The original Gag bit slides on a rope and can be pulled way up into the horses mouth, not something I have ever chosen to use.

This is my favorite snaffle to use, green goo and all LOL, it is a loose ring snaffle, the rings are thick and what is called weighted. The mouthpiece is sweet iron, in the classic snaffle shape, tapered and not to thin, this bit has a Les Vogt stamp on it. I have seen some snaffles that to me defy the logic as to why anyone would put that kind of torture device in a horses mouth! (((shakes head)))
Emma has never had any bitting problems and has taken whatever I have put in her mouth, so I try to stay soft with her.

This is Emmas curb bit, mullen mouth, made of sweet iron, tongue relief, she seems to like this bit.

Easys curb bit, a little higher port, as she likes more tongue and pallet pressure, same shank as Emmas bit, about 6 inches.

This is Easys correction bit, she has been a pain to bit, as she forever is behind or in front of the bit, and snaffle bits she runs through, or your arms get so tired fighting with her, she is 24 and probably wont change now! anyway she keeps a leveler head and doesnt throw it as much and is a lot smoother in this bit. Easy likes the fast events more than she likes the Equatation slow work, always has LOL

This is Mickeys Eggbutt mullen mouth snaffle, it arches but does not break in the middle, she does not like the pressure that a regular snaffle puts on the bars of her mouth, and she hates dropping a metal bit, these nylon bits have made things a lot easier for her.

This bit is one of those half breed bits. It is used primarily for fast events, although it is a pretty mild bit. This bit would also be considered to have a little gag action as the mouthpiece slides up. This is Mickeys again, used when she did gaming events. This bit has a couple of names, wonder bit is one. The shanks allow you to have more, lower, or less, top hole, leverage as you may want. Again the nylon mouth piece to spare Mickeys teeth. She started throwing her head up and running backwards, and getting a metal bit stuck on her lower teeth(((sigh))) but with careful slow work and using these bits and using a pressure signal by squeezing her pole before dropping the bit, we have gotten her over the worst of it.

And for Katherine, yes I have english bits to LOL, the dreaded Kimberwick, although I dont see why so many people have a problem with them, especially at the 4-H level, it you are showing dressage and working your way up through those levels, no way! But 4-Hers who are learning and have bad hands to begin with, they are a good learning bit for beginning Huntseat riders.
I have ran across Kimberwick snobbishness from some people. I think it is a decent transition bit from wester shank to snaffle eventually, and the kid can work on equationtion instead of fighting the horses head all the time. Just my opinion again.

And the classic eggbutt snaffle, used by both English and Western riders alike. I do have quite and extensive collection.

These are just the ones that I have on bridles, I still have some Billy Allen and copper mullen and .....etc. in my box.

I taught my girls to ride Western and Huntseat and bareback. They have done Equatation and have done Gaming, and it seems we have all the differnt tack to go with those disciplines!

I do have a bitless, Parelli type halter bridle, that I tied up myself too, next to it on the left a Parelli round ring snaffle bridle and on the right, one of our Parelli halters and our carrot sticks. I would never push Parelli on people, but it really has helped me find some answers with my mares and really has given my more patience with them.

I hope you enjoyed my little tour, what bit you use is dependant on what discipline you ride and what your horse will tolerate. Also, there are no magic bits, harsher doesnt replace patience and training. As for the mecate on the halter bridle or snaffle, its ok, but I tend to fight with it more than I like and for a beginner, again in my opinion, they are not very safe, to much rope to get hung up in. I said before my preference is split reins. If there is any questions you have just let me know. I didnt want to do a post telling you what each bit is, you can find a lot of that on the Internet, but this is more personal and tells you what bits I chose for our horses and some of why.

Riding Emma....

I love Emmas color, I hope she doesnt get to much whiter. I rode her today bareback for about 20 min. Boy am I out of shape!!! I will probably be sore. I worked with her on the ground for a little while, then bridled her and stepped on a bucket and climbed on LOL She was good.

My legs said "what the heck are you doing?" I really have to get out there more, I am hoping, now that there is nice weather : ) to get out there at least 3 time a week, even if I only ride for 15-20 minutes, until I get in better shape, at the rate I have been going a trail ride will kill me LOL so I need to ride to get both us fat butts in shape LOL alas no one was around so I could get proof I rode LOL LOL

Aarrgg the flies were aweful! So sticky! I sprayed her with fly spray twice they were so bad, just the regular house fly kind. They kept sticking on my arms and the back of my neck. I hate flies LOL

Time to get fly masks out, if she will leave hers on!

Emma couldnt figure out why I was making her stand around and do nothing LOL

Taking pics of a mostly white horse, I need to change settings when I take her pics, the sun was so bright though, I couldnt see the LCD, to see how they were coming out. I could photo shop them, but these are straight out of the camera.


Oh then something at the neighbors caught her attention.

She is very soft in this bit. It is a mullen mouth sweet iron, I love the D's on the side, makes it nice when you are doing training, you run the rein up and out of the D and then you can use a martingale if you want, or just direct rein. This bridle is really wide, I love it on her, she is big enough to show it off, and not look funny.

Close up of the bit. I prefer split reins when I ride. I also will ride her in a weighted, sweet iron, round ring, Les Vogt, smooth snaffle, (some description LOL it is the one in my title pic, but on a diff. bridle now) but for some reason I couldnt find it. She likes this bit though. Will have to ask Meg, and hunt for it hmmmm....

What do you all ride with? Split or closed reins, when you ride western.

Feeding time, Horses and daisies....

Well the pasture tells me it is early summer, even though the temperatures dont. We are supposed to get up to 80degrees this next week. Then it might feel like summer!

The old mare. Easy. aka Pines Bundle. No one could ever figure out a nickname from her registered name, so it became Easy, as in Eeeaasssy girl, LOL she is a little high strung, running quarter, and Poco Pine is her grand sire. She has been a good horse. She is a really hard keeper though. She gets 8 cups of Vitallity 14, and 4 cups(dry) of beet pulp, soaked, twice a day, and of course her hay with some alfalfa too. She has been talking to me when I bring her the grain.

The grain usually ends up all over the place, usually I try to put the hay leaves around her grain feeder so that she eats all of it off of the hay too, messy old girl LOL. I had her teeth checked, and the Vet said "I would float her teeth, if she had any to float" LOL she still has her uppers, but only about a 1/4 inch on the bottom, so she gets her mash and what hay she can eat. Funny thing is she doesnt quid yet, I suppose she will when she does lose teeth.

She looks pretty good right now for 24 years old.

And one of the fatsos LOL they only get one leaf of orchard grass right now, that will change when the pasture dries up some and they are not getting anything out of the grass.

I have an old Breyer horse I have had since I was a kid, she looks just like it LOL It was a Quarter Horse family, all I have left are the Mare and the Stallion.

"What ya doin mom?" Just taking pictures of your fat butt honey, LOL

Why are daisies such a happy flower, weed LOL daisies with a sprikling of hay.




Appy butts drive me nuts....Appy butts dr.... oops got carried away there LOL LOL One fuzzy Appy butt.

Emma was like " what are you doing, you are interfering with my dinner" Cute spotty face that she is.

Appy perspective, usually involves food!

She looked at the camera and smelt it and said " not food, hmmfff".

And a front view, look at that chest! I can fit my spread out hand in there with room to spare! sorry flies and all LOL, they werent too bad today, I try to spray them every morning, the RepelX I use is suppose to have some residual, although it is water based.

Thanks for going out to the pasture with me.

I am thinking.... Beautiful dogs, beautiful souls....

I am thinking, about raising a Guide Dog puppy myself. If I do it I want to wait until fall, so we can go trail riding and stuff this summer and not have to worry about a puppy. What do you guys think? Should I? It is a lot of commitment, with Luxor Meghan did all of it except when she needed a puppy sitter, or Mom and Dad to watch him for awhile :) As long as I am not working at least I could do something worthwhile.

These dogs are so wonderful and special, I have never seen anything like it.

Marimba, (third pic)they do get attached to the handler too, I wonder how Luxor is doing, knowing him, he is taking everything in stride.

Beautiful animals

Patience is a virtue taught to them.




They say the first is the hardest.

Yellow, Black, Male, Female, you do have some say in the choice.

And a dog with a most beautiful soul, He is much missed.

Luxor. 409P.

(((wiping tears)))

Damn dog.... LOL

What to Blog about tonight....flowers and dogs and horses! oh my LOL

Isnt this just the cutest Dahlia, had to have it when I seen it LOL.

Well what to Blog about tonight, I keep practicing with my camera, this flower was really hard to take pics of, it is still washed out a little it has more color than the camera would pick up.

Bi color roses are my favorite, and I hate roses LOL only because they are a lot of work to keep them looking nice.

Rich red succulent roses, they were very neglected last year as I was unable to go out and prune and weed them and put their food on them.

Teddy checking out the world.

At least his little nose still works, he has cataracts now, sometimes he has a hard time and sometimes you wouldnt know.

And the horses are fat and very sassy! LOL Meghan got an offer from her boyfriends mom to pay for her first semester at collage, in exchange for working for her this summer. They own a couple of houses in a small town an hour and a half or so from here. So she left tonight to go work. They grow up so fast! It will be good for her.

Did I say the horses were fat! LOL Mickey looks like she is pregers LOL she isnt. Things are quiet around here tonight, Hubby is working swing, went out and fed and brushed all three horses, they are content, if a little itchy LOL Mickey is terrible she insists that you scratch her belly, she will walk up to you and stop with her flank by you and look at you LOL scratch me! She is a good old mare. Easy is her normal trim self though, she looks good and has dapples now, I will have to get a good pic of her, she took longer to shed out this year, I assume its age, just on her sides and throatlatch area and legs, she is all slicked off now, except for her legs.

Now that we are done with graduation, time to start riding!!!! It will be good for me to get out and feed morning and night, Meghan has been feeding since her sister left, and before that Sara fed them. So now I am going to do it! Get my lazy butt out there and feed them am and pm LOL it will be good! Of course I have always checked on them and fed when the girls have been gone doing something. I will have to get used to it now, with all the kids gone or doing their own thing.

Wow we are empty nesters!

Graduation Party....

We had a good get together on Sat. for Meghans Graduation.

Good food,

Good people.

Hubby spent all day on Fri. smoking pork ribs, 53 lbs worth! I made potato salad and had a couple of that Amish friendship bread loaves that I cut up. People brought mac salad and baked beans and vegies and watermelon mmmm mmmm good stuff!

Hubby had a little incident with the smoker though, the wind kept blowing the burner out, it is propane, and after relighting it for the 4th time or so, he didnt wait for the excess propane inside the smoker to dissipate before he re lit it....pushed the button to re lite, and boom!!!! knocked him on his butt.... he is fine, and its a good thing Meghan and I were not home! Or maybe not LOL but at least he wasnt hurt, finished smoking without a hitch after that, and they turned out wonderful!! Meghan and I had gone to the store for some more groceries.
Carissa, Nancy, and Meghan, good pic., Nancy is Meghans boyfriend Davids, Mom.

LOL my little second cousin Justin, he wouldnt smile for me to take a picture....

Until his uncle John reminded him about some "bug" thing, inside joke, LOL and he got this little grin.

Meghan, me, my favorite Uncle John, and Hubby.

Great Grammie Isabel, she is 96! and cousin Liz, Judy and middle bro in law.

Nancy, David and Teddy, and Meghan. I dont know what David was doing to the little old man Teddy, but....made me laugh.

Meghan got a lot of cards and some gifts, she had a good time. I was cold and breezy, but at least it only sprinkled a few times. We were up until 1:00am! I am to old for that LOL, had a good time and good food, and good company.