Moving Out, Sort Of

This was E's last morning to enjoy in her chair. (yes, it is summer here despite the evidence to the contrary) 

 Today, J helped move her into her new dorm room at Tech.

 She had the car loaded.

 She'll be on the second floor of the honors dorm, 2 to a room, 2 rooms to a suite, 1 bathroom per suite.

 Her friend Jackson volunteered to help her move in.  That left J only having to make one trip carrying things from the car.  He said  they parked right at the door, easy peasy.

I guess we are on our way to being empty nesters.  But we do have V to look forward to next month.  She is having to work at a bank branch closer to home so she will be spending September here, YAY!  And E will still be coming home for holidays and summers.

Final Push

The Iron Mountain Jubilee (http://ironmountainjubilee.com/) endurance ride is coming up in just 2 short weeks.  I've been struggling over what horse to take if any.  J is riding Jessica again.  I really didn't want to sit out for a second year but Hank has just gotten too old and I dreaded doing that much trotting on him, he is sooo rough.  Pep with her slowness and tender feet was out of the question and Otoelene, having finally recovered from her year long struggle with white line disease is still being babied.  That left Wrangler and Brother to chose from.  Wrangler has been doing well but I'm still a little leery about going full tilt for 30 miles on him.  Since E was going to show Brother at the State show I was a little worried about something happening to him on the ride since the show is just 12 days later.

 Well, after the show at Ivanhoe (HERE) last month, E has decided to not take Brother to State.  This means writing a letter to the State office explaining why we want a substitution and a $50 check.  The only problem is that she wants to take Pep and I had had her shoes pulled after E had picked Brother and was on her way to college next week, and Pep is so iffy on those tender abscessed prone feet and now the farrier can't come until next week.  So until we get shoes and make sure Pep is ok it looks like Hank is hanging around in the background for potential back up at State.   Got all that.

 It just means that I get to take Brother on the endurance ride in 2 weeks.  J and I rode the 8 mile Horse Heaven loop in 1 hr 40 mins on Saturday.  There were a few obstacles, some down trees,

 this rattle snake someone got to before we did,

 and herds of these hateful horse flies.  Brother really hates those.

J has done a great job slowing Jessica down.and Brother has sped up some so they are making a good pair so far.  Anyone want to crew for us in a couple of weeks?

Naming Help Needed

V was able to dig up her old camera for me to use while I'm trying to decide what replacement I want.  Her's is a canon power shot 7.1 MP that takes (sucks all the energy very quickly from) 2 AA batteries.  Anyway, it works so I guess I'm back in business with the blog as long as my supply of AA batteries holds out. 

So this is the painting Wrangler is donating to the Silent Auction fundraiser for the State 4-H Horse Show next month.  (Thank you C for the donation of the great frame and mat) Now I need a catchy name for it, maybe something incorporating 4-H or horse activities.  Tell me what you've got!

Wrangler Can Paint in Print

Look who made this month's issue of The Quarter Horse Journal...

Yes, that's Wrangler in the lower right corner of the Snapshots page.  I had originally sent his picture to the America's Horse magazine for the Readers Write page since I don't get the Journal.  Imagine my sister's surprise when she got her Journal and opened it up to see Wrangler's picture there.  We might just make him famous yet.

First Cruise

Well, after a bit of an absence I'm back.  V, E and me and two of my sisters took a cruise around the southern Caribbean for 8 days but as all good things it came to an end.  There were just a few problems with the trip, the first being J didn't go with us.  He didn't want to get on a boat and he was concerned about being able to get someone to look after the farm for that long.  

We had excellent accommodations with a state room that had a balcony.  It was very nice to be able to look out at the different ports as we arrived and departed.

          

The second problem occurred  after our first excursion.  I had picked to do a trail ride that ended with being able to ride out in the ocean.  That was amazing and I had lots of pictures of the ride plus our first day on the ship and the airplane trip through the clouds.  Anyway, someone who will remain nameless, but it wasn't me, V or my sisters, picked up all the stuff from our locker and even told me she had my camera.  When we got back to the ship, no camera.  A frantic trip to the customer service desk and the excursion desk yielded no help.  My camera was gone, left on the bus with no hope of recovery.  

I was able to take some pictures with my iPad and V and E pitched in with their cell phones but those first two days were lost.  E commented that I was acting handycapped without my camera when I kept asking her to take pictures of this and that.  Now I just have to get all the way home to figure out how to download her phone pictures to my computer.  

The weather was great,the food was wonderful and plentiful (sort of dreading getting home and stepping on the scale), the company was entertaining, and the cruise staff, top notch.  More later after I get out of the airport, back home, unpacked and recovered. 

Good Fences #71 Mount Rogers 2015

V wanted to do something Sunday other that sit around, so we took our 6th hike to the top of Mount Rogers, the highest point in Virginia.   First the fence pictures.  Then you can skip the family pictures if you want. 

 The views from almost any direction on this 8 mile hike are stunning.

 The biggest problem with hiking is that you have to watch where you are going and can't enjoy the endless vistas enough.  Yet another reason to be trail riding instead.

 V, E and J were all up for the challenge, along with V's boyfriend Mike.

 J broke out his favorite trail food, sardines and crackers, for lunch.  I, on the other hand, had a balanced meal of Cap'n Crunch and a cucumber.

 Our lunch spot took a little climbing to get on and off.

 We were lucky enough to see the "wild" ponies.  They are always a favorite.

 We didn't try to pet these however.

 And we made it to the top.

 There's Mike and V.

On the way up this section some boy scouts were coming down.  One had his feet slip out from under him and he toppled backwards landing on his backpack.  "It's a good thing I didn't land on a rock," he opined.

For more Good Fences click HERE.

Horse Show Fail

We took E and Brother to a show Saturday to practice for the State 4-H show coming up in September.  Brother started out looking really nice in the warm up but then the show started and things went downhill from there.  

 E's first class was youth go as you please.  I think there were 15 horses doing a little bit of everything.  There was even a family standing next to me hollering out, "#38 your honor, there he is, whoop, whoop, whoop, WHOOOOOP."  And this was every lap their son took, which was quite a few considering how fast he was going.  Anyway, E was managing ok for the first bit.

 Then all of this went past and Brother just couldn't hold it together.

 Too fast, head too high and E couldn't do anything to slow him back down.  

She didn't place in that class or the western pleasure go as you please which included several gaited horses flying past her.  Then it got dark and the lights came on and Brother got even worse.  Her next class was youth western pleasure which thankfully only had 2 other horses.  She did manage 2nd even with having to lope.  But then there was a 4 class break where she went and just trotted to try to calm him down.  Still, nothing helped and when they took a break right before her class I sent her in the ring to lope him around.  Unfortunately, he was just too wound up and was looking dangerous so I pulled E out and got on him myself. (I know, that makes a lot of sense.  Take the young spry girl off and put the old stiff woman on.  But I worry so what can I do?)  Let me just say, he was a handful.  I was trying to keep him in small circles so he wouldn't take off but the ring was filling up and the barrel racers were starting to warm up.   Then Brother exploded!  He took off bucking across the ring.  I looked down and thought "I'm going down" but after seeing the ground and knowing how bad it would hurt I decided to try harder to stay on.  It didn't help that someone started whooping and hollering at me "you go girl, get 'em WHOOP, WHOOP, WHOOOOOP!"  I finally got him stopped and by some miracle stayed on and managed to get him to keep cantering until he calmed down.  

I told E to switch me in for her for the last class and she said she already had.  He still wasn't perfect in the Open Western Pleasure class but he sure did a lot better and was calm with a loose rein.  The judge commented that he had really quieted down and what a nice mover he was.  But with only one other horse in the class I didn't have to worry about anything passing which helped out.  The other horse was a well seasoned pleasure horse so of course I got second but I still feel like it was a victory after that bucking session.  Oh, and someone on the rail scored my bucking ride an 8/10.
E is starting to really regret her decision to take Brother to state now.  Hopefully we can get things worked out before then.