Woes of Moi

Ya'll think if I chop off Alfred's head he will stop slinging it?

Yeah, me too.

Gosh darned that sorry, rotten, good-for-nothing, pitiful, pot-bellied pony. This morning I was liable to hop off, break off a mesquite branch, and every time he'd go to slinging his head just BOP! Right between the ears!

Naw. I wouldn't do that. In fact I'm not aggressive enough. I have a problem with making a horse do something; I tend to offer it to him and then just kind of bug him til he does it. Which is bad. Very bad. Don't ever do that.

See, Tyler is too aggressive. He's just a demanding rider. I've heard Daddy say if he mixed us together, he'd have a good horseman on his hands. Haha. If only, if only... But I am getting alot better! I think I've ridden like 25 days out of 30 in the past few weeks.

He doesn't know alot. But Alfred, being the lazy bum he is, tends to throw these tantrums to get out of doing stuff. It's like him saying, "Well I don't wanna, I'm not gonna, and you can't make me!" I just have to say, "Oh you will and I can!" I have a hard time being... A disciplinarian. If that's a word.

Enough of my horsemanship woes. Next week we will have a huge crew; as big as 14 on some days! Yippee! =D That will be fun. And it will be easier on everybody.

Oh goodness I'm tired. And worn out. I need to wash clothes. And... I'm too tired to write much more. I just decided I should write. Before I get out of my blogness. Since I'm kind of on a roll.

Oh, and I need comments on my new layout.

Adios!

{-->R.A.N.D.O.M.N.E.S.S= Bloggynesss

Alright so the blue jean template was cool to begin with but I decided it was too dark. I'm not a... dark person. I'm more in the light soothing colors; and I'm not talking pastels. Like sage and beige and such... I love bright colors too. But not on web pages.

[/end rambling]

Tomorrow we get to start working a little more. -sigh- I love working cattle, don't get me wrong. But that means I have to ride Alfred and that little horse is driving me crazy. Just toss his head, and pull on my hands, and URGH. I seem to be doing all the right things; anchoring my hands and not giving to him, but he is persistent. Last Friday when we brought some cattle in he saw his buddies he was running with 2 weeks previous. They were running off, and he goes to humping and throwing some sort of little tantrum. It was pitiful, I lost a stirrup. LOL. Luckily he's just a little pot-bellied doof and all ended well. But the point is I am getting quite perturbed with the creature.

I hope Wyatt continues to hold up. He was ridden pretty hard as a youngster and usually breaks down during fall works and gets lame. But tomorrow we have to start moving stuff back to their pastures, and we have to work our good herd in West Bull.

Then Sunday evening the 3 Goofs come back in. Ha... We have the 3 Amigos and the 3 Goofs. Seems that day hands travel in threes. Huh. That's funny.... So does bad luck.

Hehe. So Monday we will start working the North side, the beef cattle; for some reason I hate the North side more than the South side. Racetrack is pretty good to work but I hate North Adobe. -shiver- Mountain is a pain in the butt too. Ahhhh wells.

And now I will end this tiny pointless blog post with one of my favorite Bible verses of all time.

"When I am afraid,

I will trust in you.

In God, whose word I praise,

in God I trust; I will not be afraid.

What can mortal man do to me?"

Psalm 56:3-4

Bow Howdy!

Well this has been a long week and I'm kind of glad I can finally rest a little bit but it was fun!

On the 23rd we started our Fall Works. We went from Tuesday-Saturday (not quite a week) with a crew of 8. We worked the South side of the ranch, which is strictly Corriente cattle. This week we still have some little stuff to do; work West Bull (our good herd) and move some stuff back around to where they belong. But the hard stuff is over.

It was Daddy, Grandpa, Tyler, moi, Dave (Tuesday-Thursday), Adun (pronounced UH-DON, Thrusday-Saturday), and the 3 Texas boys. Dewey, Waed & Jered.

Oooh boy it was fun. I think Comedy Central should have a show called "Day Hands". These boys have the best stories, I'll tell you what. Wow.

That first day we were all sitting at the dinner table eating. Seth (the guy who found these guys for us, they're all buddies) had called Wade probably 20 times that morning. And 3 more times at the dinner table. So when Wade finished he called Seth.

"Ya know, it's not rude or anything to talk on the phone at the table", says Dewey.

So Seth answers and oh my gosh.... Wade is all "Well we are packing up... Yeah, Gary fired us. No, I'm serious. He's a hateful man, Seth! Really... Yeah, he got real mad. We got two cussins before we even got outta the truck!"

And this goes on, and we are all about to fall out of our chairs laughing. LOL I guess Seth was just shocked. He was like, "Well I've worked with him and he seems like a real great guy! I have never heard him raise his voice!" Ha Jered is all "Well I guess we just bring out the worst in him."

That was funny stuff. He calls Daddy that afternoon and Daddy didn't know them well enough to keep it goin, he didn't want to get in the middle of it and he told the truth. LOL. Seth said he was gonna have to get back at them, but they made it sound like it was vice versa.

I tell you what these guys have some hilarious stories. I'll try to remember a few. It was funny though, that morning, Jered walks in first. And he is a big boy now, pretty tall and big. I'm like, oh hey, there's a big one. Then comes in Wade... just a little shorter and a little less around. "And a medium sized one..." And then comes in Dewey who is probably like 5'3 and 10 inches around. "And there's a tiny one!"

Dewey reminds me of one of those chihuahuas who think they're a Doberman.

He's funny though, just the way he says stuff and just cracks me up. One of his favorite things to say is "Booooy howdy". LOL the way he says it, he kind of has a husky voice, oh boy.

They were telling stories yesterday about this one guy they know who talks in his sleep, and bad.

I guess they were all in the bunkhouse one night and...

Eddie: "Jered... Jered!"
Jered: *wakes up* "Huh.... what Eddie?"
Eddie: "There's a horse, he got loose, look over your right shoulder!"
Jered: *sits up in bunk and starts looking around room for horse*
Wade: "You're in the bunkhouse, boy!! Go back to sleep!"
Jered: "Eddie... you're asleep."
Eddie: "No I'm not! Where's Chance? He'll help me!"

LOL!!! I mean I find it highly amusing that people can do this in their sleep. One night a couple of them were up and they hear Eddie from his bunk going, "One bull.... Two bull... No, three bulls!" And they kind of chuckle then Wade asks, "Ya get your bulls penned, Eddie?" And he retorts, "Yeah, no thanks to ya'll!"

Oh wow.... They had so many stories. But they are 20x funnier in person. Like I said, just gotta hear em from Dewey.... He's got like the opposite of cross eyes though, so you can never tell if he is looking at you and if he is, you don't know what eye to look at. =P He has a wife and a kid, and his kid's name is Cedar. I thought that was a pretty dang cool name.

I guess once Dewey went to a bronc riding and Wade came along, only to find out Dewey had secretly entered him. And not under his real name, but under Willy Everride. Say it aloud. LOL. Oh, and he was from Rooster Poot, Montana.

Well he had to ride, he didn't want to look like a wuss. So he draws the best horse in the bunch, and that horse just wasted him, just laid him down. And you can hear the announcer say, "I guess the question still remains- Will Everride? We may never know..."

Ha. I can't wait for them to come back next Sunday.

Rammmbllleeee

Sara. I realize you are jealous of the fact that I have been presented with the oppurtunity to aquire the title "Bronc Stomper". Don't be.

The grass is always greener on the other side, my friend, always greener on the other side...

You have a job where you can work under the air conditioner; or, considering the approaching months and weather accompanying them, heater. There are no serious hazards; sure, you cut yourself with a blade while opening a box.

But... you're a clutz. (Sorry-but you're my friend, so I'm allowed to say that.)

You don't have to worry about your shirt-tail flapping wrong sending a 2 year old sorrel into a fit.

You needn't worry about not reaching up too far with your stirrups to tap the colt in the "knuckles" (they're elbows Daddy, elbows! Say it with me- EL. BOWS.) and thus kicking him in the belly resulting is a chastising from your bronc stomping coach.

There are no hazards of your mount suddenly deciding, why no, he does NOT like loping and he thinks he will just stop. Because he wants to. And he's a frickin colt.

It's annoying. It's stinkin annoying.

Don't ask what encouraged this rant to spill from my fingers onto the keyboard and thus to the computer screen. Because it is rather difficult to explain, and rather... Well, ridiculous. So. You will only sit in awe of my unexpected rampage and ask no questions. Understood? Yes. Good.

Moving on.

Yesterday I got up to help Daddy and CJ get in about 20 head of yearling Charlois (I can never spell that word) steers. That was rather easy, a very nice ride indeed; there was that Fallish-Winterish smell in the air, it was cool and ah just very pleasant. We got to the house and.... The pleasant-ness ended. In that very pasture we keep our loose horses that are crippled or we don't use or something. For example there is a grey that is not broke, a horse that requires alot of riding but Daddy doesn't have time for, a horse that has something wrong with his neck it seemed and is now crippled, etc. And we just got two sorrels up; a 4 year old and a 3 year old.

The 4 year old is a pot-bellied little creature by the name of Alfred. When he was a weanling and we broke him, he was so ugly. It as pitiful. Scrawny and ugh. So we decided he needed a dorky name. What is more dorky than Alfred? (Sorry for any of ya'll named Alfred out there, I mean for a horse, and... Well we couldn't name him something regal like Charlemagne.) So Alfred it was. But at 2 years old he became lame; suspensary I think. We get alot of those. Most heal, some don't. His did and this spring Daddy put some rides on him. Then didn't have time for him again I think. So out he went. But now here he is, 4 years old, pot bellied, filled out alot, but still not the purtiest horse in the ring.

Then there is a 3 year old we call Kansas, because Clint started him and Clint is... Well he's from Kansas. Clint started him I guess like early this spring. Or late this winter. However you want to say it. Anyway. He started him and didn't end up riding him much at all. Maybe put 15 rides or so on him. There are pictures on MySpace of this horse bucking. Not crow hopping, mind you, bucking. Needless to say, I was rather glad that Alfred was my project, and Kansas CJ's. But this horse was really skittish and weird. Clint can dang sure ride, about as well as anybody I have ever seen. But I'm not sure if he took this horse too fast or what. He ended up not riding him hardly at all after those first few rides. I wonder what happened.

Anyway. So we saddled up the two beasties and warmed them up in the round pen and then CJ was to work this Kansas.

It was awful; CJ would just put his toe in the stirrup and not even get up on the side, and this horse would booger and go to bucking. But in an hour, Daddy helped him and he was lined out real nice. It was a BIG change. CJ was able to trot and lope him around both ways, without a mere hump. Then Daddy gets on Alfred for about 5 minutes (he's gentle and lazy) and decides they were gonna frickin ride all the way across the pasture we gathered this morning on two horses that hadn't been ridden in like 6 months, to get a rig.

Are. You. Frickin. Crazy. (?).

Apparantly so. But off they go. I watched them as far as I could, then they got on a rise and I could no longer see and my horse wasn't up. So in the house I go to do school.

They were gone a while.
Then longer.
It's not that far to the corner, is it?
Hmmm.

Finally, here they come. I go outside to see if Daddy wants me to unsaddle Alfred or something. CJ doesn't get out of the truck (he's on the phone), and Kansas is in a war bridle.

Ha. Uh. No. What happened?

Apparantly Kansas did buck CJ off the dirty sucker. I guess it was when they were almost to the rig; wouldn't it suck to make it all that way??

Daddy says there is something wrong with CJ's arm. Kaitlin (CJ's wife) is in Portales where she has a college class twice a week, so Daddy takes him into the ER.

Mama and I are sitting in the house hoping and praying it's not broke. Not only would that stink for CJ, he would be pretty much out. We figured he can ride with a broken arm, but if it's his right he couldn't shift the pickup. Or do just about anything during Fall Works which start next week.

Daddy comes back from town a couple hours later. CJ DID break his arm. And it's up high; like upper arm. Which means no he cannot ride. But it's his left arm, so yes he can shift the truck. Gosh dangit Kansas.

So yeah. Ya'll just pray that it heals well and that when Daddy gets on Kansas (he will I know dangit) he won't get hurt.

Alright. Well I must go eat breakfast now. And brood over what I must do the rest of the day. Probably gotta ride the dang colt.

-sigh-

Adios ya'll.

The Bronc Stomper... Got Stomped.

That's right. Sorrelly dusted me.

Laugh.
Tease.
Do as you will.

I will only shed a tear for each bone jarring jump.

Which.... would only be like.... 3 tears.... I guess.

Alright, alright, so it was like completely and utterly my fault. It was actually a good thing it happened. I was always afraid he was gonna do something.... But now that he did, I feel better. If that makes sense.

Again. It was my fault. When we started 'em in the round pen it was fine. That first ride outside scared the bajeebers outta me, and ever since, I'm scared to death to even move. I don't know why, and I know it only makes everything worse rather than better. Being scared to move, for him to move, is what got me bucked off in the first place.

We were in the arena, and I was scared for him to move out much. But I finally started to trot circles. This horse has a real neat way of moving, but he will sure get down in the dirt and duck off and surprise ya now. That's what he did; ducked to the left at the fence. I got outta shape and.... jabbed him with my left spur. Great. I go to grab my right rein, but the spur of course encouraged him to duck off to the right. Already outta shape, the right spur got him, and well, off we go. I was really outta shape in that saddle, it was sad. I half bailed half flew off. But since I kind of bailed (he wasn't bucking THAT hard), I didn't hit the ground very hard. I kind of.... slid off. Neither CJ nor Daddy saw it. Anyway the worse damage was a pretty scraped up finger and a sore knee. We got it all figured out and since then it's been better.

A friend on MySpace, Jennifer from TX, told me "the important thing is you get back on and spur the fur off the danged critter!" HA I love it.

Anyway. So all is well now in the bronc stomping world.

And I must go now. I am adding songs to my Playlist, but need to get breakfast and get started on school. We have been spending ALL morning, EVERY morning working with the colts, and I have gotten hardly any school done. I need to today, since I got the morning off.

Adios!

Semi-Rant and Fish Pix

Whatddya know, I actually managed a healthy amount of sleep last night. -congratulates self-

Well, since nobody else is going to... You know, being appreciated and rewarded for the small things really matters in life. But does anybody thank you for the really small things? NO! You have to do bigger, more noticable things.

Well maybe if somebody would thank us for the little things, the big things would HAPPEN MORE OFTEN!

Wow. Don't think the caffeine wore off just yet.

Um. Sorry. Just on a little rant. My ride on Sorrelly this morning (my 5th) wasn't as superb as the others. I got on, and we are done with having other people flag us around so we have to make them move on our own. Which is okay because I have my handy dandy little dressage whip.

-cracks tiny whip and Rawhide themesong comes on-

BUT.... Sorrelly is, for whatever unGodly reason, one sided. In a manner. He is smooth and moves out really freely (the only horse in the bunch that does that at all) to the left. It's his going to the right we have problems with. He is really sticky to the right, and wants to turn his head into the pen walls, and his butt into the center. Or, if I bother him enough doing that, he will turn the other way. I was getting SO frustrated because I was trying to pull his head to the right, kick him in the elbow with my right stirrup (which is harder than it sounds), pop him with the whip in the right side of his butt, and process whatever Daddy was barking at me at that time.

All at the same time: pull on right rein, cue with feet, whip, think, I CAN'T HANDLE THIS PEOPLE!!!!

So finally Daddy got frustrated with me enough to get on Sorrelly, which really made me feel sorry because I'm glad he got Sorrelly lined out, but I felt like I was incapable. Ug. Anyway when Daddy stepped off, poor Sorrelly had steam just rolling off his coat like you wouldn't believe. Then CJ got on Bay Boy, and he is really tight moving out, so he bucked with CJ for about 5 seconds; CJ lost his left stirrup, but stayed on. It was funny, that poor horse didn't know where the heck his feet were, I bet it was a rough ride. Then Daddy got on Yeller, who did really well considering how we thought he was gonna be. He's probably doing the best of the 3 horses just because Daddy is riding him. But I'll get better!

Then we led them into the pens and set them up so we went in a circle through the pens, with the old round pen, crowd tube/chute in the middle. So yeah. We trotted them around, went over a log, all that good stuff. Tomorrow we are taking them into the frickin pasture! -cringe- Oh well. Atleast I won't have to worry about my stinkin horse not going RIGHT. Dangit Sorrelly, how hard is it???

Sorry. Still a little steamy. I've always had some issues when working with horses around my Daddy; it seems all I ever get from him is negative feedback, while with CJ he compliments what he does well. Hence the first little rant at the beginning of this post. But I'm trying just to not lose my cool and learn from him instead of popping HIM in the butt with my little dressage whip like I was desperately wanting to this morning.

Moving on. My fishie... Uh still doesn't have a name. I was thinking maybe Ritz or Leo or Cash or something along those lines? Suggestions are welcome. Sara wants me to name him Bob. But she thinks EVERYBODY should be named Bob. FYI, she has a ghost named Bob. She wanted me to name my cat Bob until I told her it was a girl. Then she suggested Bobbi.

Really creative Sara.

So anyway, I was bored after lunch, so here are a few pictures of the little dude. (It's rather hard to take pictures of a fish through a crappy plastic bowl.)

Haha those Bettas crack me up, with their little grumpy faces. Hehe. That's how I felt this morning. -makes fishy face- Grrrr. Ha try walking up to somebody, making a fish face, and go "grrr". See if they're intimidated.

Seriously.

It'd be funny.

Or.... retarded....

But hey, that's just how I roll. =D

Random...ness....

Ugh. I just spend about 6.5 hours in town. Forgive me if I seem a little... disgruntled.

Got up this morning, got dressed, and went outside to ride my colt. (It was frickin cold without a coat; I need to buy one. It even sprinkled a little and remained real cool all morning.) Uh... Not much to say there. I couldn't get Sorrelly to move out real well by myself, since we had made my halter lead into reins. So he went and got me something he got specially for that occasion.... A dressage whip. LOL. I felt like a little English person. But it worked well! It's small and light and did the job. Hopefully tomorrow I can get him moving off my cues alot better.

Uh. Then I came in, no time for a shower (we were doing other stuff in addition all morning). So I ate, changed clothes, got my piano stuff, and out we went.

So yeah. I was in town. But good news is I got 2 new pair of jeans, and with my gift card I went to PetCo and got some Hamster bedding & chews, these little jingle ball toys for Harley, and a Betta kit! I used to have a 10 gallon tank with lots of cool stuff. But after I didn't have a fish, I accidentally broke it. Plus, it was a pain in the butt to clean, and Betta don't like to swim around that much either. So I have this little bowl, and I bought some of those pretty round smooth rocks, they're green and clear. And this little snail with a sign that says "NO FISHING". Haha. Yeah. And then we went to WalMart, where I got my fish. He's like this salmon color. Purty. =D I already had fish food at home. So yeah, now he is happily swimming around.

Then we went to Starbucks and I got a much needed mocha frappuchino. Ahhh... yummyness. OH and at Target I was craving strawberry licorice aka Twizzlers. But there was this kind of licorice in a paper type bag that said it was Australia's favorite licorice. Hmmm. So I got it. It's really really good! Really chewy and kind of soft, and... strawberry-y. Very yummy.

Yeah. So... I probably won't sleep much tonight. Due to the caffeine from the frappuchino, and sugar fro those licorice... Which are like death in a chewy stick. They are PACKED with sugar and calories. But to heck with calories! THIS IS A FREE COUNTRY PEOPLE!!!

Uh. Wow. Caffiene has negative effects on me.

Yeah so. Oh I saw a shotgun range dude at the local livestock place. He came once, his name is Terry. I didn't recognize him at first, and he walks up to me in line and is all, "Hey shotgun girl." Ha. So anywho.

Oh I wrote a poem this morning. In like... 15 minutes. See the WRCA is coming up, and I get tickets and hotel rooms provided if I travel with some close friends of mine (their daughter is my penpal) around various schools in Amarillo, doing Cowboy Poetry and music stuff on behalf of the WRCA. I do this one little poem is all. And then last year they started doing a show in the... show part of the building.... With young kids. Hallie plays fiddle and does some poetry, Cody does poetry, Tyler plays the guitar, they had this one other kid playing guitar I think, and then I do my own poetry and one or two of other people.

Well I was needing some new stuff. So over the past week I've been struggling over a stinkin legal pad, with a fairly good idea in my head, straining over this poem. It was so hard to writhe out, and I only have 4 stanzas. It ticks me off. I just couldn't get it to flow.

But this morning, Daddy said something that reminded me of something he told me like 1 or 2 years ago when we were halter breaking colts. And... I decided to make a poem out of it. So I sat down after working with Sorrelly, and just started to write. It just all kind of flew out, I only had to really stop and figure out some of the rhymes like 3 times. In 15 minutes, I had hardly- decipherable scribbles on both sides of a legal pad page - 11 stanzas. I put it on the computer and did some editing and lengthened it to 13. Turned out pretty well. I'm gonna do a little more editing then maybe I'll share it with ya'll. ;]

Okay well. I guess I'll go clean my room some since it's a mess and take a shower and mess with my poem a little. Adios ya'll! (And sorry for boring ya'll to death.)