Wow

When Curad says their bandaids are extreme hold, they mean it!

I like these things!

Yes, I AM the Toughest Cookie

And don't you forget it!

Foal training started today. We didn't get to pick our foals, we had to draw for them. I drew one of the smaller ones, but then I'm probably the lightest in the class, so that didn't make much difference.

I was also one of the last to get my foal, which meant I had less time to work with her. I drew a little sorrel filly, dainty head, pretty brown eyes....

And completely fucking psycho, or she was for a bit. They didn't snub her long enough, and she freaked when she felt a tweak on the halter... my gloves didn't grip the rope and she got loose. So I took the gloves off. But, she got me off my feet and I whacked my head... blacked out for a second and she was gone.

Keep in mind that there are nineteen foals in the arena at this point, and five or six horses. All of the foals are whinnying and neighing, and a good chunk of them all came from the same place, so they're all buddy buddy, and when they're scared, they want to be with their friends. They also rear, kick jump up and down, and basically do anything they can think of to get away.

Now me, I thought I had it pretty good, my little filly let me touch her right off, smelled my hand, all that good stuff... but then some of the others started going nuts and she had to jump on the bandwagon. Every time they got her caught she'd stand calmly after a little fight and look around, I'd take her, and talk to her... she was listening to me. Then one of the others would freak and she'd start struggling.

Picture this. Nineteen foals of varying descriptions, eighteen students (one girl has two foals, because they got too many in) all in a medium sized arena. I'm at one side of the arena, talking to and petting my little filly, when our neighbor, a big stud colt, goes nuts, and backs into her.

She rears, turns from me, and I keep my feet for a while. Then she somehow got a strong yank on the lead and I was down. Didn't knock my head this time, though, so I kept the rope.

Of course, she's got momentum, and I don't weigh much, so she's headed off for never never land... and I can feel the wind from her hind feet right above my head... not good. So, I let the rope slip a little, as we swung into a graceful turn... I'm on my back, one arm over my head, one behind my back, both hands on the rope.

About this time I began to notice that my pants, loose enough to fit around my hips, but not normally loose enough to fall off... are beginning a southward migration, thanks to the growing beach inside them. I looked down long enough to realize that everyone was gonna know what color underwear I wore today, and then realized I had bigger problems, as I began to feel the beginnings of road rash on my ass.

The filly finally stopped, and I lay there a moment wondering if she was facing me, or if I was about to get kicked, before getting up, and snatching my pants back up.

It was then I remembered that I had an audience, because they all started cheering.

Apparently, people had been yelling for me to let go, and once she stopped, get up... I had no clue.

Apparently, everyone else in the class had decided to stop what they were doing and watch me get drug in a nearly complete circuit around the arena.

Apparently, according to Sparky, I had a big grin on my face when I went by him.

I got a lot of "Are you ok?" But I just looked at my filly and told her "That was fun! Let's do it again!"

I've been awarded the tough cookie award for the class.

But the filly... who will remain nameless because they won't let me call her "Bitch".... went back to her pen on the end of a lead rope, with me on the other end... and she was leading, not being drug, like some of the others.



Meanwhile, I had to hit Wal-Mart before I came home to get some peroxide and a jumbo sized tube of Neosporin Plus Pain Relief.

Scrapes on the knuckles of my right hand, a chunk out of the palm right at the base of my birdie finger on that hand. The ring finger of my left hand the nail got pulled part way off... not really bad, but bad enough to bleed like a stuck pig, and the pinky nail bled a little, but it just got the skin pulled away from the side of it.

Road.. or arena... rash isn't too bad, just a few places where sharp gravel got me. Back is soring up, neck too.

And my watch stopped. Damnit. I liked that watch.


I wonder if I'll get a plaque? Or maybe a trophy...

FINALLY!

Today has been a pretty long day. I went out to the barn at eight, and fought with Monkey for a while.. he decided he didn't want to go to the arena first thing, and we had to discuss this a bit. His stubbornness was finally defeated with the simple expedient of backing him all the way to the arena fence. He was so focused on the fact that he was facing the barn, where he would much rather be, that he didn't notice we were at the arena until his butt bumped the fence.

I swear, if he could have, he would have slapped his forehead and said "Doh!"

Then he wanted to act up in the arena, but we handled that. Once he was behaving fairly well (and blowing just a bit) we went to the indoor arena for a while, because it was freaking cold and I had forgotten my stocking cap in the car.

After that, we went down by the rodeo arena where Monkey got tied to the fence to stand, while I hooked up a trailer and helped S work with her horse on getting in her trailer. Can't really blame Diablo for not wanting to get in there, it's a tiny side by side two horse, stubby and not much head room. I tried loading Monkey in, I was going to load him and unload him a few times with Diablo watching, but Monkey refused. To the point that he actually pulled the rope out of my hands, walked around to the side of the trailer, and looked at me like I was crazy.

Then, Farmmom, Farmdad, and Mamaw showed up with some of the calves, which are being loaned to the program to train the cutting horses on, and we unloaded them. After that was accomplished, I still had to finish cleaning Monkey's stall, and Monkey was still tacked up, so I sent Farmmom off to ride him while I finished up getting his stall ready for him.

She came back with the world's biggest grin on her face, it made all the fights more than worth it. I'm just glad she finally got to ride her horse, we've been trying to get her on him for a while now and it just never worked out. Now she knows for herself the difference, and doesn't have to take my word on it.

Now if I can just get ahold of the former boss about riding out some of her three year olds and get some extra income coming in, I'll be a happy camper, and able to pick up some of the tack that I've been drooling after for a while.

The magic of Auntie Farmgirl

"Anything you don't want going in his mouth, you'd better put out of his reach before I put him down. He's gotten really bad about putting things in his mouth lately."

My sister in law and my brother were at the apartment dropping off my nephews for me to watch while they did some blisfully grabby-hands free, and "mommy can I have?" free grocery shopping. My sister in law was speaking of my youngest nephew, at one year old, who is just getting the hang of this whole walking thing.

"No worries, I'll keep an eye on him."

She gave me a mocking glance, and they took off for the car, cackling with glee all the way. (Don't bother lying about it the walls are thin, I could hear you!)

So, I turned on Balto for the oldest, and handed the rugrat my keys to play with. Auntie Farmgirl has much experience with kids that age, and I knew that the keys would keep him entertained for a good five minutes.

Of course, he's at the age where he has to look at everything, and pick it up, and inevitably, put it in his mouth. He's teething, and he's just started to walk good, that's the way it works.

The magic comes in when he started pushing buttons on the dvd player.

"Rugrat."

He studiously ignored me.

"Rugrat, look at me baby."

He looked, giving that chubby cheeked "I know I'm doing something I shouldn't but I'm cute so you should let me anyway" grin.

"No no, Rugrat. Don't touch." I patted his little hands and shook my head.

He pulled his hands back and held them to his mouth, giving me a "you awful abusive woman!" look.

"Oh bull puckey, you're fine, go play with your truck."

And Rugrat giggled and toddled off to find something else to get into.

But he didn't push buttons on the dvd player again the whole time he was here.

It's magic! Heh.

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."