Stuck In The Mud

HA! I thought I was going riding today... but it rained all night and THIS is what happened when I tried to drive the truck out back to hook up my trailer this morning...



So I guess I should have known better but it was Melwood's BIRTHDAY ride and I didn't want to miss it...

Randy DID get the trailer out later in the day once things started to dry up, and I meant to get the camera for pictures of the rig bogged down but he got it out before I got to it... Anyway here are the TRENCHES it left!

Where Zacchaeus is standing is where I stopped the truck... the deep spots behind him are where the trailer bogged down.


Sorry blurry but one more view of my "trenches"...


So bummer I could not go riding... so I was looking for something to do that would be a good excuse for NOT cleaning house lol... Well remember that blue dress I mentioned Friday?

I dressed it up with a ruffle at the top edge and at the waist...

The bottom of the front... I added maroon panels to both sides of the front slit I cut... and again the ruffle around the waist.

The view from the rear... this original dress has 2 layers of gauze over the top, I am still debating whether to leave them or remove them... Randy says thumbs down, but my "other mother" Shirley, who does the parades with me and makes costumes too, says to leave it...

What's your vote?

We did manage to drive over to the restaurant where the riders gathered for lunch after riding, so got to socialize a little... and when we got home...

THIS is the RV A/C unit we removed from my horse trailer...

THIS is the new skylight!

A view from the inside...

So I am pretty happy to have this done! And the A/C unuit will be going on Craiglist tomorrow night!

PS last but not least, HAPPY BIRTHDAY HILARY! My baby turned 19 today... she was going to go on the birthday ride too and I promised to buy her lunch but instead she slept in and then ditched me for lunch because the boyfriend said he would fix her car...

Fence Project Update

Lindsey came out last night so we went up to Wickenburg for breakfast at the Cowboy Cafe and stopped in at Matt't to get some hay... then she took the black and white male pup home with her, the friend who is leasing Paint Mare and lives out in Queen Creek wants to see if her dachsund will tolerate sharing her parents :) That's 2 down and 2 to go!!! Actually I had a call on the little female as well, but the people are moving Monday so wanted to wait until after that to pick her up, didn't want to confuse the poor pup by moving her twice... as for the little blonde short-haired male, if I get "stuck" ;) with one of them, he's the one I won't mind - SSHHH don't tell Randy LOL (as if he doesn't already know!)

After all that, I still had a very productive day today... got yet another section of fence done! This was the 5th and now there are only TWO left!!! Yes I've been busy, too busy to do fence on weekends for a bit so I took several days of working a short time at night and got the 4th section done...

You can see the wooden posts on the left which is where the old (wrong) fence line was, and the new fence on the right. Look how much space we are reclaiming!


Standing at the old fence, I have cut the end and removed the first few posts until I had enough loose wire to drag to the new fence line and block the gap - got to keep the dogs in the yard!!!


Looking south from my stopping point, again the wooden posts show the old fence line on the left, and you can see the new fence on the right...


This is looking north at the two sections I have left to do...


But it will be a bit because tomorrow I am going riding! And this coming weekend is the endurance ride in SONOITA! And the weekend after that is the annual fundraiser ride for AZBCR (www.azbcr.com)... so I'll be too busy for fence!

My hands are ok with that though, they are pretty sore from all the gripping and twisting required to move this fence... and I don't think my knees or my back will be complaining about the break either!

A "Feeling" Confirmed!

Tonight I found out that Dillon's paternal grandfather is quite the famous donkey! I was talking to a breeder in East Texas whose jack is actually a cousin of my Dillon and he was telling me about some of the donkeys in Dillon's pedigree. I am VERY pleasantly surprised and amazed!

You see when I got Dillon, the plan was to buy a couple of weanling jacks to bring back and sell to help finance our trip to Texas. But when I got him home, there was just something about him, and I ended up selling my older jack and keeping him instead.

This means that Moses, Clementine, Madeline, Jeffrey, Charles and Benjamin have a famous great-grandfather!

Nice to know that "feeling" was worth listening to!

Goodwill Find

Our annual pony rides at the special needs preschool are coming up so I hit Savers and a couple of Goodwill stores on my way home from work today, looking for more stuffed ponies... gotta have 80 to for sure cover all 4 classes of kids and only a few more weeks to get there! Thankfully after today I am up to about 65 total so I think I can get the rest covered in time.

But LOOK!!!!! LOOK WHAT I FOUND!!! And best of all, for TEN BUCKS!!!!!






What a parade costume THIS is going to be!!!

Actually I got TWO dresses, the other one is a pale aqua blue... I already started working on it though and forgot to take "before" pictures darn it. I'll post it soon...

And while I was shopping I got a call on the puppies, ended up running home to pick up Darci's fluffy little man and bringing him back to town, and he is SOLD! 1 down, 3 to go...

Better Late Than Never - Benjamin Update!

My friend Rose had her sisters in from back east and the baby donkeys were a must-see while they were here. Good opportunity for some updated photos of Benjamin since I have been bad about that...







And of course my Sarah Beth :)

Fuzzy as all get out!

Her mama taught her right off how to HUG!

My New Venture

Recently I traded some of my horseshoe butterflies to a gal who was making rhythm beads for horses... and, she made matching "mane clips" so I got those too in my sets, and she made them on alligator clips to attach to the mane hair. Well for years we have been making red ribbons (for horses that kick) using those same alligator clips! I got to thinking and came up with another idea... mane AND tail clips! I made up matching sets for TEAM HAG for the endurance ride, in team colors (teal, for our member who is fighting ovarian cancer) and black (because it's a good background for the teal!) They were a big hit so I made a bunch more... here is a sample, close up:

And here you can get an idea of all the different colors!




As you can tell I've been busy with this. I am hoping to sell quite a few of them at our AzBCR fundraiser ride, at which we are also having a tack swap meet... they also make nice gifts - I like to give them to people who do something nice for me - like my friend Kandace who drives me and my horse to gaited class on Friday nights and won't let me pitch in for fuel! Her Yankee got a royal purple set to match everything else he has - and boy does it look smashing in his palomino gold mane and tail!

Randy said he was a little worried about me when I was telling him that I had named some of my designs - for instance, red, orange and yellow is "Light My Fire", and I made an Arizona Sunrise, an Arizona Sunset (including the first star), and an Arizona Dusk (with more stars) - and a "Midnight Monsoon" out of grey and black, complete with lightning (white beads)! I even made one out of orange and white and call it "Dreamsicle" after the ice cream bars LOL!

They are so much fun to make, I can't seem to stop! And only $5.00 for tails, $3.00 for manes, and a total of $7.00 for a set, mix or match. And they won't cost much to mail either so if you horsey people out in blogger land want a set for YOUR horse... just e-mail me at paintedpromise@msn.com, and let me know what color! If you want to see some others close up I can take more pictures...

Gold Rush Days Parade 2010

I didn't get many pictures from the parade because we were IN it, but I took some beforehand. I got a little picture happy with my daughter - I was so happy she actually WANTED to do this parade with me! Destiny was a bit charged up and prancy as well...

Then a draft team came by and caught her attention!

Oh to be so limber...

And THIS is the reason Hilary actually got up and came to the parade... this is Frances. She is 92. We first met her about 12 years ago when Andria and I went on our first Arizona Desert Riders Wickenburg Ride... as trail rides go, we rode and chatted with Frances for a bit, and then things shifted, but when we got back to camp Andria said "You know that lady Frances, Mom? When I grow up, I want to be JUST LIKE HER!" And my response was, SO DO I!!!

Our friends Carol and Frankie were also in the group, with their horses Penny and Dusty. Dusty has a story too... Carol called us when his mom went into labor and although he was already up and about before we could drive over there, Andria and I were his first visitors! AND, he is my Luna's nephew! (Even though he is 3 years older than her!) Dusty's father is Luna's half-brother (same stud).

I even convinced Hilary to take the camera and get a picture of me! And if you look closely you can see SHERMAN riding with me! During the whole parade, every time I would hear someone on the side laugh out loud, I would look and they would be pointing at Sherman :)

All in all it was a good, good morning!

The End ;)

Land of the Sun Endurance Ride

Well it's been a week of nerves and excitement, busy getting ready, and then on Friday off I went to Wickenburg for my first endurance ride - 25 miles, including a mandatory hour stop in the middle to rest the horses, which started at 8 a.m. and had to be completed by 2 p.m. to get a finish.

This is the view I saw most of the ride:



It was awesome. Beautiful place to ride, great trail, wonderful friends, friendly folks volunteering to see everything run smoothly, really nice campground, tasty food, lots of laughter and excitement - and yes, it was HARD! I wasn't sure I would make it, I was totally beat by the time we got back... and I was worried about Katie too, this is twice as much as she's ever had to do, and in a time limit... but she did great at her lunchtime vet check and although her pulse was high when we finished, she pulsed down quickly as she should and we passed at 1:57 - less than 3 minutes to spare! I am still glowing with accomplishment and yes achy too!

The fun part, for me, is that I was the LAST finisher... which would have garnered me the coveted "Turtle Award" except for some reason they didn't have one this year. However I ws excited to call my mom and share that she was no longer the only turtle in the family. (When she used to run 10K races, she got that a lot!)

Am I going to do it again? Well I'm going to return my borrowed endurance saddle, because I found one just like it to purchase. The next ride is Sonoita in about 3 weeks... and I'm already planning :)

Dry Pictures

Just a quickie, had so much to do because the roof over this pen leaks bad and with probable scattered showers expected this week, with my luck they would scatter right over top of my leak roof! gGreat for shade but not so much for rain... anyway it's fixed now :)




Curious stablemates

I usually don't let the babies out quite this early but didn't want them inside the pen when we were working, Mary Ellen was quite protective but the others listened pretty good. At one point our little man got pretty close to Sarah Beth and Charles and WOW have THEY grown in 3 months!!