So sad...

Today was my last "official" riding class. The EBM horses are going home today, those of us who have our own horses can keep them here, and I'm keeping Monkey, until right before Thanksgiving break, but I don't have to show up for a specific class at the barn now. I'll probably go out at the same time, since that's when I have free time, but I can ride whenever, now.

The barn is going to seem really empty and lonely once all of the other horses are gone.

On the bright side there's a lot I can do to work with Monkey now that I don't have to worry about participating in class, and there will be a lot more room in the arena. Today was cold and windy, and I had the top arena to myself for a half an hour. I have to hit Big R and get a snaffle, since I've been using the school's, and I have to turn that in, and I need to see if I can find a martingale, since I was borrowing Dani's. If I can't find a martingale, I can always pick up a couple of rings and some rope and have one of the instructors help me make one.

I also need to register for my spring courses, so that I don't have to worry about it later. I'll stop in at Del's office some time and have him help me out with that.

Foal training starts soon... we'll be getting weanlings to halter break, which will be fun.

I can't believe that the semester is almost over....

Who are you, and what did you do with Monkey?

After much deliberation, and evening-time self massage of sore muscles, I decided to try a martingale on Monkey.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against martingales, I've just never used one before now, and I was hesitant to drop my learning the proper application of a new piece of tack on top of everything else I was asking of Monkey.

I should have done this months ago. No, really.

I never realized that the martingale provides leverage such that he can't pull my arms as hard as he has been. I never realized that it would apply pressure in such a way that he didn't want to pull as hard.

The martingale is my new friend.

Now, Monkey has been doing really well, most of the time, but his temper tantrums have become more insistent. They're shorter, and fewer between, but when he gets it in his head to fit, they're more intense. Fortunately my old proficiency, earned on the back of a cutting horse that liked to surprise me, is coming back, and he hasn't managed to unseat me again.

So, the martingale made me happy, because when I put it on him, it was like I was riding an entirely different horse.

It has moved to the top of my Christmas list.

Meanwhile, I've started taking my feet out of the stirrups to... ahem... encourage... Monkey to move, since he's begun to ignore my leg cues when I'm trying to get him to sidepass, or pivot, or such. The stirrups restrict my movement, so he's getting dead in the areas I can reach in them. Plus, when he's being really lazy, I just can't haul off and poke him a good one with my foot in the stirrup, my legs don't bend that way anymore. I'm not sure they ever did.

Even more progress is being made, and the teachers assistant told me flat out that he's made at least a hundred percent improvement since the first week.

Blood and Gore

So, continuing the story of the cattle drive... well, actually after the cattle drive, we got them all sorted (and kudos to Sparky's girlfriend, she got right in there and helped sort, and worked her butt off) and went to trim horns on one heifer, but we forgot one very important aspect of the timing of this.

It was the full moon.

You see, during a full moon, animals, and people, will bleed heavier. Something to do with the tides, or some such. I've never looked into the reasoning behind it, but I've witnessed the fact personally several times.

Of course, with all of the hullabaloo, all of us experienced knowledgeable types forgot this simple staple of animal husbandry, so we whacked away at that heifer's horns, and it was a bloody mess.

See, inside a bovine's horn is actually a blood vessel. It doesn't go all the way to the tip of the horn, but in young cattle, it comes pretty close. If you time it right, it won't bleed heavily when you trim, and you'll be able to stop it with some handy dandy blood-stop powder.

If you time it wrong, you'll wind up with a cow in the chute with blood squirting out of her horns.

So, I ran for the blood stop powder (it was a long day, ok?) while Farmdad held his thumbs over the ends of the horns, and proceeded to get my hands bloody as I poured powder on then packed it in with my thumb.

When that didn't work, we brought over the branding irons and cauterized the vessels as well as we could, followed by more blood stop powder.

You know its a bad bleeder when you can't manage to cauterize it with something hot enough to leave a permanent, clear burn in a distinguishable pattern on something as tough as cow hide.

Shortly thereafter, E and T had to go, but not before E took a picture of himself with the bloody saw, like some kind of serial killer, and I snuck up behind him with my bloody hands.

Of course, we left little miss bloody cow in the chute for a while to make sure we had the bleeding stopped. The setup we have there, the calf cradle is at an angle to the cow chute. Since we needed more head control (and because this heifer was a wee bit big for the calf cradle,) we had the heifer in the cow chute. We also had a few calves we needed to brand, the ones that got away from us, or that the brand healed too much on last time. So, I was running the tail gate on the calf cradle, running a calf through, crouched down because that gate is heavy and I'm not, when I feel a light, warm spray on the side of my face.

Look over, and little miss heifer is squirting again. Let me tell you when you expect to look over and see a heifer snorting because she wants loose, and get a glimpse of a thin red stream headed your way, its enough to ruin a day. Especially when you can't do anything about it until you get the calf run in the cradle and the tail gate down.

So, E missed out on an excellent photo op, I had blood all over me (that hoodie will never be the same) and S, the vegetarian girl, looked slightly green. Meanwhile, Sparky and his girlfriend were having the time of their lives, jumping right in and helping out.

On a brighter note, S mentioned to me on the way home that she has decided, as a vegetarian, that all cows should die. She doesn't want to eat them, but she's in favor of everyone else doing it, and says she could possibly be paid enough money to eat beef now.

Of course, I could have done without the face full of cow blood. I looked at S afterwards and said "at least now you have an idea of why I am the way I am." Her reply?

"Nope. You're still just weird. All I know now is that you're even weirder than I thought."

What the fu...

Ok was watching the news after I posted that last one and I gotta say, folks are just getting entirely too sensitive about the dumbest crap.

The Golden Compass is a movie based on a book, and the Catholic church is upset about the movie because it is... get this... a blatant advertisement for the book, which contains atheist themes.

Well no shit sherlock, the movie is based on the book, of course it's an advertisement for the book!

Oh, and get over it, if people want to be atheist they're going to be atheist.

I also have issues with the spokesman for the Catholic church referring to Catholicism as "The Cadillac of religions."

Wth, is it a belief system or a car? Cause I gotta tell you, my belief system is a lot different from my car.....

Slacking

I've been slacking lately, I know it. I haven't been putting up the quality posts that I started this blog with, but I'm going to attempt to remedy that.

There's a big long list of things that I've meant to blog about, but I lost it.

Soon as I find it I'll find the time to sit down and write a good post, that hearkens back to the likes of the Sidesaddle Rodeo.

Honest, I have stories that are funny, I can just never think of them when I'm in front of the computer. Or, I get so caught up reading the likes of those on my links list (whoops, need to update that, too) that I forget to write anything myself. Bad blogger! Bad Blogger! No Linky Love!

I'll try to think of something appropriate today, or tomorrow, and take the time to make it good rather than banging it out and leaving it lay. I'm also still working on the re-write of the accident story... I just lost the muse for it. I'll get back to it someday, but every time I look at it lately my mind just wanders. Things like "oh! cookies!" and "did I leave my tiedown on the hitch rail?"

Which makes no sense at all because I always hang my tiedown on the saddle horn when I take it off.

The Big Cattle Drive

We had a lot of fun this weekend, and the horses all did very well... most especially E's horse Rebel, and T's horse Tori. Those two ponies worked their butts off, they were the most experienced out of all of the ones we had helping, so they did most of the chasing of the strays.

Of course, Rebel gets a gold star, because right off the bat, the cows were nuts. Once we got them across the highway, it was all good, and everything went smoothly, but to start with, they didn't want to do anything that even resembled cooperating.

One of mom's precious Hereford crosses decided to go all evil and start ramming the horses... Rebel got hit a couple of times, and she crawled right up Monkey's butt, lifted him off his hind feet.

I gotta tell ya, I thought I was a goner. I looked back just in time to see her dropping her head to hit him, and I figured either he was gonna leave me there and head for the hills or we were going for an e-ticket ride together. I had time to think "oh, shit" and then she hit us.

I am so proud of Monkey, though. His only reaction was to kick her in the face and run forward a few steps, then go looking for more work. Spooky horse my ass!

Of course, another of the cows was being the shits and not staying with the herd, and E had to rope her and drag her back... Rebel worked his butt off hauling that cow around, until we gave up on teaching her to lead with the horse, and tied her to the pickup and let dad drag her around... but E and Rebel got her a long way... even if E did have to adjust his dally a few times....
I just love that picture.

S came with us too, brought her horse Diablo, and he and she did really well for never having seen a cow before. Farmmom got to ride Diablo for a bit, while the cows were being stupid and we needed another person that knew what they were doing, and it just made her day.

Once we got them across the highway things went better, they moved a lot easier and we got to where we were going... Long after I had figured, but we got them there.

E's camera was there too, and there's a bunch of pictures on it, I'm waiting for him to email them to me, and then I'll share some more. I don't know what all they got with his, but he said they got some good ones, so we'll see when he gets them to me.

I'm too old for this sh.....

Really, really too old.

We quit drinking at four thirty this morning. Since then I've gotten four hours of sleep, been to class, grocery shopped with Farmmom, had lunch with T, herded cats... er... gotten everyone together to come to the Homestead... loaded a reluctant horse and an easy loader, hauled them down here, had a near flat (the treads were peeling off the tire... YIKES!) gotten the tire fixed, unloaded horses, got water for horses, fed horses, came back to Mamaw's house, peeled and chopped potatoes, and dug out cactus jelly for breakfast tomorrow.

I'm so tired, I'm not sure I'll be able to chew.

Remind me not to do this again, guys. I forgot just how exhausting it is to be young.