Bouncy Bouncy Bouncy....

I am in SUCH a good mood right now! Just got done out at the barn, I don't have feed crew tonight, and best of all... Bubbah (that's what I've decided the bay's name is) was FABULOUS today.

Almost like a real horse!

He fought me on the stops at the fence at a trot for quite a while, but once he figured out what I wanted, and that I wasn't going to let him get away with turning down the fence, and that I wasn't asking him to run into the fence no matter that I kept driving him until a stride or two before the fence, he did pretty good.

And then we did it at a slow lope... and he was danged near perfect!

I don't care if he was behaving because he knew if he misbehaved I'd haul him down into a trot and make him stay there, I don't care if he was behaving because the good horse fairy whispered in his ear. I don't care if he was behaving because the Martians were landing and sending out their telepathic equine mind control rays.

It doesn't matter. He was behaving. He got neck hugs and rubs and pets and good boys and scratches right up by the poll band on his bridle (that's the piece that goes right behind his ears... always itches him) and he got grain when he went back to his stall.

He also stood still, by the other horses no less, without trying too hard to shove them over or run away... I could drop my reins and shift around in the saddle and wiggle on his back and he just sighed at me.

So we went out on the trails. We've only been out on the trails once before this, and that was such a disaster I wanted him behaving better before we tried a repeat. We had a couple of moments, but he was generally very good.

I'm so proud I could bust. Bubbah boy is finally getting it, and working with me instead of against me. If this keeps up, we can start working on the harder stuff, sidepasses and gates and sliding stops and rollbacks when I ask for them.

People are starting to get a little jealous. At first they were all thinking (and saying to each other) "He's so pretty, but there's no way I'd ride him."

Now they're thinking, and saying "He's so pretty... and he's getting better....."

One actually said that to me, with a wistful look on her face.

No. You are not riding my horse. You called him a psycho a week ago. Well, my psycho horse and I are just fine, thank you very much, you just go ride your nag around in circles, and see if you can't get him over the world's slowest trot.

If you'll excuse me, my horse and I have some beautiful loping to do.....

Good Calves Days/Bad Calves Days

I appear to be some kind of weirdo, who cares more about whether she's having a "good calf day" than a good hair day.

Hair? Who cares? I just pull it up in a pony tail and throw a hat on over it anyway.

(When Best Friend was doing my hair, we'd finished the dye job before I had to go do my feed crew duties, but hadn't gotten the cut yet, so, at her threats to life and limb, I left it down, and went without my hat. This garnered a "Holy crap! I didn't recognize you!" from a couple of class mates that see me every day. No, really. Every, single, day. We sit by each other in one class, talk about our horses, they've been to my apartment, and they didn't recognize me with my hair down. Tells ya somethin' don't it?)

But, on two concurrent days, I can wear the same brand, style, and size of socks... even from the same danged package... and one day they'll be annoying as crap, sliding down and driving me bonkers with my boots rubbing on my legs, while the next they could be superglued to my calves, like proper socks.

Good Calves Days, and Bad Calves Days.

I have to be the only person in the entire world who thinks of these things.

I wonder if I could get a set of those sock suspender thingies that men used to wear?

Bull Riding Pictures

I promised ya'll some pics of the bull riding practice, so here they are!

The most entertaining bit was the impromptu rodeo clowns... and there were a lot of them...


This kid got hung up, but don't worry, he's ok.



Apparently, for some of these guys, one in particular, touching the bull while the rider is spurring them on is the ultimate in macho.....

Because this one just kept trying.....



Of course, they weren't the best bulls in the world... a few of them just wanted some praise for their hard work, like this guy.....


But all in all there were some really good pictures to be had, like these.....

My Goal For The Day...

Is to convince my riding instructor to let me out of class today. The rodeo team is getting bulls in, and they're gonna give the bull riders some real practice (as opposed to practice on the mechanical bull) before the first rodeo.

And, thanks to the persuasive powers of Fred, the rodeo coach, E will be riding a bull today... I gotta get pictures of this. E wants me to get pictures too.

I've got my fingers crossed that when the instructor finds out they're gonna have bulls in today, she decides she wants to watch too and just lets us all watch.... I'll go out early and work Bubbah, I just wanna watch the bulls!


Edit: Success! I rode with the nine am class instead, and I get to skip out on the three pm class to go watch the fun and games! I'll see if I can't post some pictures for ya'll when I get home tonight.

T Is A Brat!

So, I'm sitting in business class, listening to the lecture, when my phone vibrates. I check it to see what's up and it's a text message from T.

Not too worried about missing something in the lecture, it's all covered in the book, anyway, so I answer.

A few messages later, after I've told him how I'm starving and can't wait to get out of class so I can get some lunch, he tells me he's eating a big steak burrito, smothered in green chili.

Brat.

So when I got out of class I called him, and told him he was a *expletive deleted, but it rhymes with clock* and that he flung a craving on me for Taco John's.

Which flung a craving on him for Taco John's. So I kept him on the phone until I got home with my food, and dipped a potato ole in the nacho cheese sauce, and yammered on for a bit about how good it tasted. He called me a *expletive deleted, but it rhymes with itch* and I told him he'd started it while talking about his big burrito...

Which took us into an entirely new world of innuendo....

Let's just say I'm not gonna look at "sour cream on the inside" in quite the same way for a while.......

Man, I miss that little twerp.

D and Me.

A while back I posted the Best Worst First Date Story Ever, and I mentioned that the guy, D, and I became good friends after that, but never dated again. We did, however, take a few road trips together, which, due to D's strange road trip Karma, never seemed to turn out quite like we expected.....

The first such road trip was actually across the state to pick up his girlfriend at the time and move her back to D's place. At this point, D was no longer managing the ranch, and was helping his dad out on the family place instead.

I had just gotten my first car, a '91 Mercury Tracer with no amenities, not even power steering. It was a little four-banger five-speed manual transmission, so it was cheap on gas, but it would still go like striped assed ape if you knew how to drive it. This was it's first long trip, and I was excited.

It was January or February, I don't remember exactly, and we had two different mountain passes to go through, each way, so we ran into some ice and snow.

I picked D up at his house around six in the morning, and we headed out, both of us groggy and grumpy, FM radio turned up loud enough to wake the dead just to keep us awake on the road.

Soon enough we were woken up and we started singing along with the radio, neither of us any good, both of us caterwauling like crazy people, trying to drown each other out. At least until we hit the mountains, and couldn't get any reception.

We made it to Durango, got to the girlfriend's place, and started loading her stuff.

It was at this point that I discovered that she had four cats. And she was bringing them with her. And she didn't have a carrier.

Picture it. A maroon Mercury Tracer, the trunk and half the back seat stuffed with black plastic garbage bags full of what I can only assume was all of her junk, three people in the car, and four cats loose.

One of the cats about caused a wreck, we were talking and not paying much attention to where they all were, because they had been in the girlfriend's lap or the back window... but one of them had come down out of the window, crawled under the driver's seat, and curled up under my brake.

We only discovered this fact when I went to stop at a stop sign and actually stepped on the brake instead of just tapping it to slow for towns. The yowl went up, my foot came off the brake and we rolled right through the stop sign as I fished for the cat with one hand and tried to keep us on the road, D went head down in my lap and the floorboard trying to catch the cat, and the girlfriend in the back seat yowled just as loud as the cat about how it was my fault the stupid little fuzzball crawled under the brake and got itself squished.

I was not amused.

I kept that cat in my lap for the rest of the trip just to make sure it didn't do that again.

Shortly after this we discovered that with three smokers in the car... we were, collectively, down to two cigarettes. I had forgotten to grab my cash that morning, and had been assured by D that he'd take care of any costs... shortly thereafter to discover that instead of the hundred dollar bill he'd thought he had grabbed, he had a twenty, and we'd already spent fifteen of that on gas. And the girlfriend was a chain smoker.

So we stopped at a convenience store in the mountains and paid an outrageous price for a pack of cigarettes that we all had to share on the remaining six hours of drive time. At this point I was getting a little cranky, the girlfriend's constant whining about being hungry, being thirsty, being tired, her cats being tired of being in the car, and a myriad of other poor-pitiful-me complaints along with the furball in my lap deciding that I was an excellent scratching post, and the ensuing lecture about proper care of animals from the girlfriend when I picked the little furry set of needles up by the scruff of it's neck and growled at it, (which brought about an argument as I explained to her that the cat wasn't hurt, and I was disciplining the thing like another cat would, which was far more psychologically effective than patting it on the bottom and saying "bad kitty") along with being hungry myself, all added up to my own little slice of hell.

That is, until a song came on the radio that reminded both D and I of a party we'd gone to where a mutual acquaintance had gotten knee-walking drunk and stripped to skivvies before her boyfriend had walked into the room and kept her from tossing her bra with a flying tackle, and we started discussing this, and other funny incidents that we were reminded of.

Now, this here is the part that I just don't get. Girlfriend had said she was ok with D having female friends. Girlfriend hadn't said a word about any of the other short bits of banter that D and I had engaged in. But for some reason, talking about mutual friends/acquaintances that did stupid things caused her to lean in between the seats, glare at D and then at me, and say "Well, maybe you two should date instead!"

And for some reason, us looking at each other and saying in chorus "Tried that, didn't work," only pissed her off more.

Ah well. We made it back to D's place, where D, girlfriend, TC, A (D's twin brother, if you missed the last story) and myself had a grand old time bsing, dancing to the music, and eventually, getting a little crude with an ice fight.

Ladies, let me tell you, when you're being held down by a big ol' cowboy while two little wiry cowboys sit on your legs and stuff ice in your bra and underwear... well, there's not much you can do about it, until they let you go.

On an interesting side note, apparently it's really hard to get ice out of the crotch of tight Wranglers, even when you go commando.

Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Farmgirl.

I've Been Blog Luv'd

AD has sent me some blog Luv!

The rules of the meme are Thus: I post the little picture in my sidebar, and tell Ya'll about five other bloggers that I love. So, hang on to your hats people.

Murph, over at Murphy Was A Grunt. This dude is hilarious, go check him out, and feed his ego. Maybe he'll post more regularly then, instead of in spurts.

Monkey Girl at Musings of A Highly Trained Monkey. I gotta agree with AD on this one, she needs to take her rest, chill out, and come back to us.

CrankyProf at Cranky Epistles. Even though the posting rate has gone way down since the Prof popped out the latest sprog, which I am definitely not going to criticize, there's still plenty in the archives. If you haven't checked her out, go do so.

LawDog, of course, at The Law Dog Files. Ya'll should already know why.

And, since I'm jonesing for more Star Of Life I'm going to go ahead and hit AD with this one again, for that one.

And, since the last one was a tag-back I'm gonna go ahead and give ya'll one more...

On The Clock is a great blog, Sam is giving us the story of how she got into the bambulance business, and the amusing things which happen along the way. This girl is a very good writer, and keeps you on your toes. Go check her out.