I MISS MY BABY GIRL! and 2010 Resolution #3

*Warning: There are lots of links in this post to make up for the loss of pictures from the ITD my computer contracted.*

The four-legged one, not the teenaged one.  I had this whole year-in-review, decade-in-review thing planned for today, but then started my daily blog crawl and it dawned on me how many horse blogs I follow, just look at my profile for the list (note: Preachers and Horse Thieves is not a horse blog, though K. is a hoot and a half; everyone should read his blog).

Maybe it's because I'm sick yet again, which may be a year-end record for me.  Three illnesses in three months, WTH?  I'm never sick.  Maybe it's because she went down to winter pasture much earlier than the other horses and I haven't had nearly enough time with my baby.  Maybe it's all of the horse blogs I now follow.  Who knows?  What I do know is that I miss her so much it hurts.  I just want my baby girl.

I know that she's nearby - in Lyons - with the rest of the herd.  And I know that she's fine.  And I know that it's better for her to be out running with the herd than up at the Lodge where there's no wind cover and it's too cold and miserable to go for a ride anyway.  But damn it, I miss her terribly.  And I'm terribly envious of my horse blog friends who have their horses either home with them or boarded some place close, who can see their babies any time they want to.  And, if the weather's nice, they can just climb on up and away they go.

So, I guess my current year-in-review is going to involve my baby girl, Miss Estes.  She came home shortly before my wedding, and though she couldn't be in the wedding, I had to share our special day with her...

...yep, up and over the fence in wedding dress and boots!

She wouldn't have anything to do with the RockCrawlinChef being in the picture, but A-butt managed to get a nice shoot of me and Estee...We didn't get to the lodge in time for Estee to get a Spa Day, so she's a little rough around the edges in the picture, and still wooly from the cold.  For some reason, A-butt thought it more important for me to get the whole hair and makeup thing done for the wedding than Estes getting a good grooming.  Crazy kid!

We didn't get nearly enough ride time this summer, I'd blame it on a new husband, but that wasn't the case at all.  I'd gotten a big promotion at work, my counterpart quit as soon as we came back from our Honeymoon, and the librarian walked out without notice shortly thereafter.  The education department in a growing college does not run itself.  Thank God for the then-education department-assistant, Amanda.  Recently, she's been promoted to full-time Academic Advisor, but there wouldn't have been any way for me to keep the department running without her.  So, needless to say, my visions of spending a couple of days a week on the trail went by the wayside.  I did mange to get up the hill most Fridays and we got to go out...

We had good days; we had temper tantrums; and we slayed ghosties.  We rode, as usual, in the 4th of July Parade, but those pictures were lost when my computer crashed.  I think RockCrawlinChef has some pictures on his computer, but, honestly, his Mac scares the crap out of me.  They are not easy computers for us PC-types.

Our riding this summer got cut short by an accident in the pen.  We're not sure what happened to spook the horses, but something set them off and Estee ended up sliding off a short ridge and impaling herself on a tree stump that Missy Meeker and Washoe had chewed up a couple of years before.  Luckily, her injuries weren't too severe, but required time off to heal. 

Mom took great care of her and the good news is that the fall seemed to straighten up whatever was causing her to tighten up.  Let's hear it for natural chiropractic adjustments from falling off a ridge.

I didn't get to spend nearly enough time with her last summer, which leads us to Resolution #3...

More time with Miss Estes.  At least every Friday, but I'm going to make a point of adjusting my work schedule so that I can make it up at least one additional afternoon a week to spend with her.

Washoe's Little Rodeo

Went for a ride with Mom and Bill today in the Wild Basin area.  Estes got hurt on Tuesday when she got spooked and ran off a ledge in the pen, and unfortunately, used a chewed up tree stump as her brakes.  Since she was out of commission I had to Cowgirl Up and ride Washoe the Wonder Idiot.  Except today, he wasn't really a Wonder Idiot, he was remarkably well behaved.  I wouldn't go so far as to re-name him Washoe the Wonderful, but maybe Washoe the Not-Such-A-Big Idiot.

He behaved like a grown-up horse for the most part.  He balked a little bit crossing the first set of bridges, but then so did Jesse and Ranger.  Bill finally dismounted and led Ranger across the bridge.  Once the horses saw that there were no horse-eating trolls, they all followed like good little mutts.

There was only one time when Washoe really tested me, but he actually had a reason this time.  The last time I rode Washoe, he fell off the side of a trail and then popped me off his back.  He didn't actually buck that time, he just wasn't strong enough to stand up from his kneeling position, so when he hopped up, I got popped off.

We rode through a cloud of horse flies on our way back to the trailer.  He did a pretty good job of just dealing with the flies, but then one got a chunk of his butt and he set to crow hopping.  Bill said he wished he had his camera out, because Washoe cleared a foot and a half.  I managed to stay on - in actuality, I was so stunned that he was pseudo-bucking that it never occurred to me not to stay on - and get him calmed down a little bit.  He calmed down enough to stop jumping around, but his tail was going a mile a minute and he was tossing his head trying to get rid of the buggers. I can't blame him at all for today's little rodeo - if horse flies were biting *my* ass, I'd throw a temper tantrum, too. 

All in all, a damn fine day.

First Ride '09

The best thing for the inside of a human is the outside of a horse...or something along those lines. Whoever said it was (is?) a wise person, because it's absolutely true.

We moved Estes up to Mom's a few weeks ago, but today was the first time I had a chance to get up to see my baby girl. Last week the weather was beautiful, in the 70s and each day was a wonderful spring day. Today, however, the weather sucked. I woke up to an inch of snow on the ground here in town, which I knew meant that there'd be a whole lot more up at Mom's place. I was right. However, when I called Mom, she said the sun was out and the wind was blowing away the snow. Yay, me!

I finally managed to crawl outta my nice warm bed, into my silk long underwear, and hauled my cookies up the hill. Mom hadn't lied, it was pretty. Still a bit on the brisk side, but the sun was shining and most of the snow had gone. I took my halter and camera out to the pen to gather up Estes. I'm a picture freak when it comes to Estes; she, however, sees the camera come out and gives me a look that says, "are you serious? Another picture?" I can't help it, I love my horse. So, I go out to the pen and pull out my camera to get a picture before our first ride of the year. The minute she hears me turn it on, she gives me the look and walks away. Ranger, however, heard the camera turn on and immediately started posing. I guess he thought that if I had a camera in my hand I couldn't catch him.

I did manage to catch Estes once I put the camera away and got her all tacked up and ready to go. There was a moment of hesitation on my part before I mounted up. What if she had "forgotten" what she learned from the Horse Master? I didn't have a longe line on her and I certainly didn't want to have to remind her of her lesson from Julie Goodnight. I shouldn't have worried; she stood like a champ while I not-so-gracefully climbed up. I would have been more graceful had whoever rode in my saddle last returned my stirrups to their proper settings. Instead, I looked like I was climbing up my horse rather than mounting her properly. Despite my less-than-graceful mount, she never flinched or showed any inclination to move until I got settled. What a great little mare I have!

I won't bore anyone with a step-by-step narrative of the ride, but it was amazing, as it always is, and I ended the ride in much better spirits than I woke up in. The mountains were gorgeous covered in snow, a sight I'm sure I'll miss in just a few short weeks, and there were even patches of snow we had to break trail through - always a good time.

Aw, heck, the computer's not reading my disk full of pictures, so I guess everyone's off the hook as far as oohing and aahhing over my pictures goes.

Wheelin', Horses and Gunpowder Therapy

What a great week!

Wheelin'...I've been working my butt off at work, feeling every ounce of resposibility for getting almost 200 students scheduled correctly, grading done and new classes set up. So I was really, really looking forward to last weekend. RockCrawlinChef and I had been planning for MONTHS to attend the Rock Zombie Outlaw's Winterfest with his truck, Tinkerbell, in Parker, CO. I couldn't wait for a weekend away - I wasn't going to spend one second thinking about work. We loaded up Tink and took her on down to Parker. I've never been rock crawling, but I've been looking forward to it for a long time. RCC did warn me that we wouldn't be doing any actual rock crawling, but four-wheeling (yes, there is a difference), as the obstacles were designed for "normal" four-wheel vehicles, not big girls like Tink. Didn't matter, I was thrilled to be going, to get to ride in Tink "for real" rather than "for pretend" like around the block or at the Christmas Caravan for Kids/Toys for Tots event.

We found our way to the event site, unloaded Miss Bell, climbed up her big 49" tires into her cab and we were off for a lap to get the layout of the land. Miss Bell, for some reason, was not very happy. She kept stalling and being belligerent, but RCC kept coaxing her on. We managed to make one small obstacle - a short slope downhill with a water crossing and back up the other side - when she became even more belligerent, so we turned around to head back to the truck and trailer to figure out what was going on. We powered up the hill leading back to the parking area and RCC decided that he'd check the transmission fluid. Hmmm...not good. She had transmission fluid, but it was obviously burned and was a little low, so RCC topped her off and climbed back up into the cab only to find out that Tinky no backy. Somehow, she'd lost reverse and we could now only go forward. Not a big problem, but Tink's a big girl. Her turning radius is somewhere around a half a mile. Without reverse, we were dead in the water. No wheelin' for us. Ten minutes or so after we unloaded we were done. We loaded Tink back onto the trailer, very thankful that she was stuck in forward not reverse, grabbed the Flip (camcorder) and headed down to the Zombie Graveyard to watch. Despite not being able to participate, I had an amazing time watching everyone attempt the Graveyard, which is a fairly difficult water crossing with loose boulders on each slope to navigate. There was lots of carnage (wheel-speak for tipping over and/or breaking of vehicles) and tons of audience participation. I heard one woman say that she loved the event because you don't even need a vehicle to have a good time. I whole-heartedly agree!

I was disappointed that our weekend away turned out to be a weekend at home afterall, but it felt so wonderful to spend Saturday outside in the sun after being locked up in my office for what felt like weeks on end. I even enjoyed the free dermabrasion from the wind and river silt.

...Horses...
Even though I had a wonderful time on Saturday, I was still feeling a bit stressed out at work and decided to play hookie Tuesday afternoon. Monday, I sent an email to my collegues telling them that I would be unavailable from Tuesday at 1:00pm to Wednesday at 6:30 am. I had no intention of even thinking about work, the students could manage for one afternoon/evening without me, any schedule problems could be handled on Wednesday, I was outta there!

I checked the weather and found that Tuesday was supposed to be almost 70 degrees! In March! Score! I called Mom and Bill to see who wanted to join me for some equine therapy and planned to spend Tuesday afternoon with my baby girl. Turns out Mom had guests checking in, but Bill was in desperate need of equine therapy so we arranged to meet in Lyons at Ida's pasture.

As I drove alongside the pasture, I looked over to find the horses and what do I see but Ida's red truck dragging the field and the entire herd, Mom's grays in the lead, following the truck in circles. Ida was like the freakin' horse Pied Piper. Bill was just a couple of minutes behind me, so I called him and told him to watch as he drove up, but by then the show was over, the horses had decided that no hay was going to fall off the back of the truck and the ground up cow manure blowing in their faces wasn't a whole lot of fun.

Ida saw Bill and me when we walked out to the herd and stopped to chat for a minute. I asked her if she'd seen Estes' picture in Trail Rider Magazine and she told me that she had bought the magazine. It's not often that the horse you raised and trained shows up in a national horse magazine, even if it is just an advertisement for Julie Goodnight. Ida went back to dragging the field and Bill and I set to catching our horses.

Estes gave me a little attitude about being caught, but was fairly easy to catch. She just had to let me know that it was her choice to be caught. Of course, the treat in my pocket and the curry comb in my hand may have helped her decide not to be a poop about being caught. She loves being pampered, especially after her stint as a TV star. I groomed her, scratched all of her itchy places, and pulled chunks of mud from the feathering around her hooves. I think if she was a cat, she would have purred.

The whole time I was grooming her, Bill was trying to catch Ranger, who was being a poop about being caught. Ranger was definitely in "wild horse" mode; he didn't want to be caught, and by God, Bill wasn't going to catch him. Funny how that attitude changed once Bill cut him from the herd and wouldn't let him re-join it. I was long done grooming Estes and had run the curry comb over a couple of the other horses in the herd while we watched Bill walk off Ranger. Doc, one of Ida's younger geldings with a wide white blaze and blue eyes, decided that I was a-okay and groomed my hair for me while Peanut, her big bay gelding, snuffled and helped Doc groom my ponytail.

Ranger finally ceded to Bill and allowed himself to get caught and groomed. Once the halter was on, he was magically transformed into Bill's mild mannered dog.

You know all is right with the world when you're sharing a beautiful, albeit windy, day in the foothills with some of God's best four-legged critters.

...and Gunpowder Therapy...
I went back to work Wednesday absolutely refreshed and ready to go (even though RockCrawlinChef and Digger had spend the night playing not-so-musical bathroom due to an ugly stomach bug). But my wonderful week wasn't over yet! I still had a GunDiva reunion to look forward to! Glenna, the other GunDiva, finished her book and revisions and was ready for some Gunpowder Therapy. I love shooting, but haven't been since I got my ass handed to me at the August Defensive Pistol match last year. Since I sold all of my guns a couple of years ago, I've been shooting borrowed guns and one in particular I just can't get a handle on. I tried and tried with this gun, but it just wasn't working for me, so while I was really, really looking forward to shooting with Glenna, I was also dreading shooting that darn 9mm. Last night as I was falling asleep, I remembered I had a .45 to shoot and I even had some extra rounds in a couple of my old magazines. Yay!

I woke up ready to go. The GunDivas haven't spent any quality time together since before RCC and I started dating, so even if we didn't get any shooting done, it would be wonderful to catch up with her. I unloaded the 9 from my shooting bag and replaced it with the .45, determined to do better this time.

We long ago decided that quality shooting was better than quantity shooting, so we knew going out that we'd only shoot a magazine or so. It's all about technique and precision when we go out, and the last couple of times we had gone (forever ago) I had finished up completely frustrated. I felt like I had to master that 9mm and the harder I tried, the worse I got. I knew going out today that I might not shoot any better with the .45, afterall, it's been seven months since I've had any trigger time and that was not a good experience.

Shouldn't have worried. We did some dry-fire practice, just presenting from the holster and lining up our sight picture for warm-up before going live.

1st live round, dead on! 2nd live round, right above the first. The 3rd round obliterated the small sliver of paper separating the 1st two rounds and so on until the magazine was empty.

Hell yes! The GunDiva is back!


I can't explain the relief I felt to see the half-dollar size hole in the target. That's more like it. That all-over-the-place bullshit with the 9 was o-v-e-r. I didn't realize how much psychological damage shooting poorly had done - after all, I'm the GunDiva, I've always shot well and prided myself on it - until I picked up that .45 and did well with it today.

Thank you Glenna for going out to the range with me today, it was wonderful. Euphoric, even.