You know, everytime I see Tirzah do this.....
I think of one of these......I don't know why........
Wish me luck. I am riding horses without a helmet and going to my darling step-daughter's wedding. Part of this trip makes me want to have a full dentition of root canals but I know I will survive.......the other part.....I'm sure will be an interesting enough blog post.
I was crazy busy today with cleaning and I'm not sure what got up my skirt but it's so beautiful out that I guess I just wanted to clean things that have been put on hold til the rain stopped. Or, I hope it stopped for a bit, because now the horses have NO HAIR and it's summer here.
First thing this morning I waited for a Starbucks from T.......waiting, waiting, waiting...but I can't complain. He likes to go see his friends on the weekend, but he told them he had to get back and bring me my Vanilla Latte Grande....Yum. I asked him if his friends asked him if he was "pussy whipped"....guys say that kinda of stuff to their friends....
I drank the very tasty Starbucks, and then I was off!!!! Like a bullet!! Wild & crazily energetic!!!
First I watched Khaliq with the cows next door. She is so cute I can hardly stand it.
(This is Khaliq BEFORE I brushed her ~ soooo shiney!!)
Then I brushed ALL the horses, including manes (no tails). They look shiney and beautiful and fat and sassy. Then I rolled up 9,000 feet of hotwire that the horses took down a year ago. Baby made it hard to do my job. She's like a big dog. She's totally fascinated with me. Though I am with her. But I do not blame myself for she is beautiful.
Then I went into the horse/hay/shed that has seen its day and started to go thru stuff. Old feed bags, halters, leadropes, horsey blankets, snakes...
Hmmm......if I left it up to T this little baby would be dead. I thought better to investigate and find out it's a good snake. Even called the snake guy to talk to him. He convinced me enough that this one needs to live here. But I waited for a bit to let him go back to the wild of my shitty horsey/hay/shed. I wanted to finish cleaning. And he was very cute. Or, I kept looking at him JUST to make sure he wasn't a rattler.
Next I rescued the pink water bucket from the pasture. How it got there is not exactly a mystery, but it coule be 1 of 6 horses....maybe Sabi if I know him.....
After that I cleaned and washed ALL of the fly masks for the imminent fly season. (Yuk.) Washed out old feed bins, baby chicken feeders/waterers, horse troughs, watched T tractor by the chicken house, went back to the shitty horsey/hay/shed and found another much larger snake underneath a tarp and now with my new-found knowledge that this also was a good snake, happily let it go underneath the hay pallets...
Then..... we went to "The Happiest Place On Earth", Home Depot. God I love it there! Bought some STUFF...wasp spray (sorry but they are BAD), a new hose and other fun stuff. After that we ate Mexican food at a truly HOLE IN THE WALL place that we love and came home and I cleaned out dried horse "mush" with the shop vac that I tossed accidently a week ago in my horse trailer tack room. It is beautiful in there now and life is good tonight. So I blog.
Next on our list is to make garden beds so I can grow some food & herbs. I may be more adventurous than my energy can handle, but I'll worry about that later. Right now I can see the gardens........
In T's excavation business he has to uproot a lot of trees and bushes. Last year he brought this one home for our yard. Unfortunately he had to leave 2 others which wouldn't have made the transport. This tree went thru a lot of stress coming to live here and I wasn't sure it was going to make it, but lo and behold there are leaves!! It's going to be beautiful and is quite tall already, some 20' high. I'm sure it's happy to be living here too and can look out at this gorgeous property and a bunch of horses and collies. Well, maybe it had a nice life where it used to live, because I actually didn't see.....
T gave me a birthday party on Sunday. Since my birthday was actually on Monday, Easter Sunday worked surprisingly well. We had quite a few friends and family come and apparently the news is out that I like wine. And tequila. Omg. 4 bottles of red wine and 1 very fancy bottle of tequila came with friends. Between those and the 8 bottles of alcohol T bought, we need to have another big party this weekend and the weekend after.
Besides doing a thorough cleaning of my fridge prior to the party and bathing most of the dogs, & trimming feet & nails AND trimming feet on all the horses & untangling a few manes, I had an absolutely GREAT time and thank EVERYONE for coming (including Thrill to play with his cute sister). I also got up early on Easter to color eggs for T's granddaughter Sienna and that was a kick to watch her go for an Easter Egg Hunt!! What a cutie!!
Here is a short video of her looking for eggs. My neighbor Adam was cracking me up and I sound totally retarded, but pretty much anything he says makes me laugh. I usually don't sound so d u m b . . . oh crap....or like I had too much wine......
After most everyone left, I was able to actually sit down for a second in depth, though much abbreviated, conversation on collie breeding with Ray of Sunshine and Laura. And, my favorite thing of the whole day? When T was cleaning up he was going to throw away a perfectly good, though slightly used margarita that I made for Ashley (who was long gone) and I barely convinced Laura she wanted it. She is a good partier!! You are the bomb Laura!!
Another birthday and I feel pretty damn good!!
My IDOL....spoke the other night in our town. Julie Suhr gave an informal talk with all the proceeds going to help the Western States Trail Foundation. I was not going to miss it, nor were most of the endurance community in the Northern California area. It was a huge event and the food & drinks... y u m m y.....
To say this woman is an idol of mine is a huge understatement. I know she's an idol to many and to tell of her accomplishments in a simple blog post could not do her justice. Reading her first book would give a huge clue, (though I understand it is now unavailable). It's a wonderful book on a life well lived and she still glows from it.
Julie is around 87 years old, from the research I can gather and is still riding her 32 year old grey Arabian gelding. She's finished Tevis some 22 times, bore a daughter who has 31 buckles (omg) and has written 2 books that I am aware of. One being "Ten Feet Tall, Still", and her new book, "....but it wasn't the horse's fault". What I love best about her second book is she starts each chapter with a photo of "The Way We Were" to "The Way We Are". Endurance in the day she started was ridden in heavy western saddles, jeans (oaaawwwwiieeee) and virtually no one rode with a helmet. Vet checks were very interesting also, as they have really evolved to include so many more parameters, even though I think the same % of horses still complete Tevis, which is around 50%. Horse camps are much more luxurious and the hi-tech tack goes without saying.
Julie still takes care of her own horses, cleans stalls, feeds 3x's a day and rides several times a week. She says she's more interested in a small, safe & sound horse, rather than something more...um big & wild? (I always liked those small, safe & sound horses! I think then I will be riding Shetlands in my 90s!!)
She is my idol because she is still living the dream, and hasn't curled up on the couch in front of TV saying she's too old to ride horses, or care for her ranch. And, that is probably why she is still in the shape mentally and physically. And, she writes books and publishes them......sooooo my dream to do.
It was such a fun evening to see so many great people listen to her and to also hear her give honor to others. She told a story about how Kathie Perry (who is a 1x winner of Tevis in 1978) rode with her and they came to the finish line and Julie told Kathie to go ahead. Kathie stopped her horse and said "He's not going one more step until you cross the finish line first". That is giving such respect to a great woman by another great woman. Gotta love it. I just love where I live and the people in it.
You can buy her book from her website at http://www.marinerapublishing.com/
Sooner to seeing you again My Darling Pierre ~
I love and miss you ~ Diana
Even if they make dumb mistakes like putting their fruit in the wrong basket at the market. This is what happened to me yesterday. I put my fruit in the wrong basket then didn't notice til I was in the meat department and noticed a very sturdy cane in my basket. Crap. I look around and wonder who I should ask is missing their cane. Unfortunately we live in this pathetically politcally correct world now, and I felt I might offend someone. Do I ask the woman who looks like she is hanging on her cart to walk or the other woman who doesn't look so bad? Stressful. Or maybe it's a man. But I see no men who look like they need a cane. Or maybe they're just faking it.
I decide to keep on shopping and give up the cane at check out. The checker assures me they get canes every day. Oh, that makes me feel better.
Apparently my little universe thought I needed to do better than that. I take Aura out on my favorite Tevis trail, the last part of it, and 1 mile into the ride a runner asks me if I know this woman who dropped her wallet with her driver's license and a gazillion credit cards. No I didn't know her but the runner convinces me to take the wallet and catch up with her, which I do. No I never catch up to her. But I do take the wallet and ask everyone if they've seen the woman. For a while they do, then she isn't noticed anymore, so I relax and ride my 15 miles ~ wherever she went..... I get back to the trailer and her trailer is gone, so I go online to try and find her phone number. Doesn't work and I am stressed. I don't want this woman to cancel all her cards and have to worry about applying for a duplicate driver's license. I also worry about the person who's cane I had in my cart, which was MY fault....I put my food in her cart and took off happily shopping. She probably doesn't know where her cane went and is now completely caneless. All because of me. Hopefully it will register when she realizes she didn't get 5 Fuji apples and she's missing her big tomato.
I stopped by the local police dept and turned in the wallet. I feel better. But, what was that about??? I hope tomorrow I don't find someone else's stuff. Two days is enough.
Maybe it has no meaning. Maybe I just don't have anything really interesting to blog about. But, I think my point is, people really are inherently good. Even if they start out kinda dumb.
Have a wonderful New Year's Day and a GREAT 2012!!!
Love D & T & All The Entais Collies, the Red Hunting Dog, Arabians, & Barnyards!!
I know I repeat myself here because this photo was posted in "How I Got My Dogs" a few years back but it might be worth repeating. I did get a Tracking Dog Title on this collie ~ my first collie Kiita. I do not remember the judges names, except the judge standing had Goldens and he was VERY, VERY nice. The judge kneeling next to Kiita and I was extremely MEAN..... He was actually bowing to me in this photo because he realized how mean he was before I started my test and then he had to eat our tracking dog dust because Kiita flew so fast to retrieve that there glove in my hand. Ha Ha Ha. Memories. They are so worth something. That was my first biggest dog show smile ever, to that date ~ 1984ish.
