First Day of School

Hard to believe, but it finally arrived. Our oldest son couldn't wait, but our youngest had his reservations. He's hoping for a better year this year though. He thinks he's really going to like his new teacher a lot more.

Dad and I went to see The Bourne Ultimatum this morning. Awesome movie!!

Last Day of Summer

School starts tomorrow. Yesterday the boys and I discussed all the things that we hadn't found time to do this summer. I told them that, within reason, we would do something special today. They decided that they wanted to go biking in Portland and swimming at the lake. So, that's what we did!

We met Dad at work and drove to Payson Park. However, when we unloaded the bikes we discovered that my bike tires were flat, even though I filled them yesterday. We decided that there was enough air for me to ride a short distance on them. We followed the trail around Back Bay to the Back Bay Bike Shop. For a small fee, they put a new tube in the rear tire, refilled the front tire (he said it was in good shape) and he lubed and adjusted the gears (finally, they work!). I LOVE my beautiful, old bike - it's a 1970s Schwinn Breeze in bright red. I changed the seat to a more comfy gel seat, but other than that it is original (and I did keep the old seat - it just hurt my butt!). With this tune-up it just cruises along...

From there we biked back out to the trail and headed for the Eastern Promenade. Other than a near mishap with some CRAZY teenage boys who were riding recklessly (and spraypainting graffiti), it was a perfect day for a ride. It was warm, but the breeze was cooling and fortunately blowing off the ocean and not the water treatment plant.

The boys really enjoyed riding along the waterfront. There was a tall sailing ship in port. They thought it was a PIRATE ship and that the pirates had taken over the city!! I pointed out that they weren't flying the skull and crossbones. That made them think for a minute. They decided that they must be GOOD-guy pirates and that they had fought off the BAD-guy pirates and saved the city. Thank goodness! ;-)

My mother works in an office building near the waterfront, so we stopped in to say "Hi!" It turned out to be her lunch break, so we went for a walk with her and her boss. It was a wonderful way to spend our visit. By this point we were STARVING, so after parking the bikes in the mailroom, we walked to the Old Port for a seafood lunch at Gilbert's Chowder House. Once a year I splurge on fried clams. These were about the best ever! (and possibly the most expensive!) Really tasty. Dad had a lobster roll and the boys had a grilled cheese sandwich and a hotdog - they are such culinary adventurers.

After retreiving our bikes, we headed back along the waterfront and the prom, but turned onto the bridge beside 295 and made our way to Payson Park, completing our circuit of Back Bay. What an awesome day!! Dad was the only one that was tired and sore - keeping up with the boys this summer has gotten me in shape, I guess. They said that they could have gone ANOTHER hundred miles! I'm just glad that we hadn't actually gone the first hundred miles. That might have worn me out...

It was time to head for the beach!! Sebago was FRIGID, but the kids didn't care and they splashed and played like wild things. I went in for a quick dip, but it hurt. I like bathwater...

Mowing...NOT!

Well, I thought I was going to get the back hill mowed this morning. I had only been out there on the riding mower for about 15 minutes when I was suddenly engulfed in smoke!! Apparently something went very wrong with the mower deck and the dried up grass and leaves that are always stuck on there caught fire. Yikes!! As I was gingerly trying to remove some of the fuel with a sharp stick, I discovered a broken spring and a missing belt. Yup, it's time for some repairs...

When I came in, I saw there was a message on the answering machine. It was the farrier calling to reschedule our appointment today! Oops! I would have been VERY surprised to see him today. ;-)

I decided to try riding down the big hill on my bicycle with the boys. That is WAY too fun!! The scary part though was when my 6 year-old went flying by me - MUCH too fast!! That kid is a daredevil.

Hay

Well, I guess it wasn't a non-horsey weekend, after all. Last night we went and got a load of hay, dodging thunderstorms, unsuccessfully. This afternoon we brought another load home. 125 bales will keep us awhile in combination with the round bales we've already purchased.

The guy that took the small chicken coops yesterday came back this afternoon to take the last of them. Yeah! He is also very interested in taking Ace home. We'll keep our fingers crossed. I really want to find him a new home before fall.

Non-horsey time...

After spending each of the last 4 weekends doing something with the horses, we chose to take a weekend off and get some stuff done around the farm! Today we were able to give away over 50 of our birds and 3 of our junky old chicken coops. What a relief! We had bred so many birds this spring that we really needed to cut back. Those old coops had been sitting in the yard waiting to be fixed and looking awful for years and years. They had to go! We have a few more to go, and then our yard will look soooo much nicer. I'm sick of junk!

The boys have a new favorite song. We bought Brad Paisley's 5th Gear cd. I LOVE "Ticks" and my husband loves "Online". The boys discovered "Mr. Policeman" and have played it over and over and over again today. Good thing we LOVE it too!

Today Blogger said that we could start putting video on the blog. So, I went back to the Skowhegan Fair post and put on a video of me team penning!! You should go check it out!!

Biking

Today was a quiet day. I'm still pretty bummed about Red, so I didn't feel like doing much of anything. I finished mowing the lawn and got some housework done though. The boys have been helping me cook, so tonight we are having Cheeseburger Pie and pudding.

They had a very rude awakening this afternoon. They have discovered how much fun it is to ride their bikes down the big hill on our road. So, I told them that we would go down and ride it this afternoon. But, that they were not to go out onto the road until I got there - cars go WAY too fast for that. I was walking down the driveway, so I was a few minutes behind them, and what do I see when I get to the end of the driveway? You guessed it - 2 little boys halfway up the hill, one of them riding right up the middle of the road!! I hollered at them to get their little butts back down to me, PRONTO!! They rode down grinning from ear to ear, only to discover that Mommy was furious with them. And, that they will not be allowed to ride on the road for a few more days since they abused their priviledge. They were shocked and of course VERY apologetic. Too bad!! ;-)

This afternoon I spent some quality time with the boys' guinea pig. They had taken him outside to play, which he loves, but they also had decided to make a lake in their sand pile, so he got very wet. Poor li'l piggy! I was sitting in the living room reading a book when they came in, so they brought him to me, wrapped in a towel. He seemed very content to snuggle with me and we were doing quite well bonding....until he peed on me!!!! Needless to say, I RAN for the shower and the boys got their piggy back.

Red

URA Wildcat Red

June 6, 2005 to August 22, 2007

Red had to be put down this afternoon. I was in the unenviable position of having to help my neighbor to make that decision. He couldn't, not being a horse person, understand why Red wouldn't get better on his own. Yet, he couldn't afford to send him to the horse hospital in Dover, so it was really the only decision that could be made. I held Lady while the vet took Red off to the other side of the pasture. He was so weak that he kept stumbling. Lady watched and never once called for him. She understood. He was my baby and I can't believe this happened....

Sick horses...

Yesterday our neighbor came up to ask for help with the 2-year old colt we sold him. Red is very sick and we ended up calling the vet for him. Apparently he choked on something, but then when he finally worked it down, some of it went into his lungs and caused an upper-respiratory infection. He had all sorts of disgusting fluids coming out of his mouth and nose. It was GROSS!! I helped the vet tube him and give him some Banamine and a light sedative to help him relax. Late last night I gave him another shot of Banamine, which helped him to stop coughing and get some rest. This morning he is much perkier and we started him on some antibiotics.

Unfortunately, spending the day working on someone else's horse meant that I ignored my own and Tillie got sick too!! When I went out to feed them their grain at 8 pm, she was lying down and none too anxious to get up. Finally she did get up, but she wouldn't eat her grain. OH NO!! Not a good sign. So, we started walking her. All she wanted to do was lay back down, which would have been a very bad idea. After about an hour of walking, she went to the bathroom a couple of times and whatever pain she was feeling in her intestines seemed to clear itself up and she was back to normal. I'm just so thankful that we were home!! I shudder to think what might have happened if she had done that the night before...

The good thing about all this is that we may have found a good, local horse vet. The local guy, whom we used 2 years ago and we were NOT happy with, has a new partner. She's the one that came out to help with Red and I called her last night to get her opinion on Tillie. She seems really knowledgable, very friendly and she even called this morning to make sure that everyone was doing better. As much as I love our regular vet, he's extremely expensive because he has to travel so far to get up here, and we may go with this vet in the future.

Skowhegan State Fair

Yesterday I took Kitchy to the Team Penning at the Skowhegan State Fair. My parents came and took the kids around on some rides and to see the exhibits. They got to see some great penning, although not me 'cause I didn't get to ride 'til after 10 pm! The event got started really late and there were LOTS of teams entered. We didn't get home 'til almost 3:30 - we had a 2 hour drive home.

We didn't win any prizes last night, although we had some pretty good runs. During one of our runs we penned 3 cows in less than 45 seconds!!!! UNREAL!! But, the judge messed up the stopwatch and we had to do a re-ride, which unfortunately didn't work out as well. That really sucked, but what can you do? Kitch was behaving horribly, but I was able to keep him under control and get him where I wanted him to be, for the most part. He did let a cow run down the hole though, which made me wicked mad! When the cow came at him, he spun around and started backing away - so not like him - I don't know why he was such a maniac last night. I really hope he's not like that at the next penning.

Here is a video that my husband made of that really fast run!

YUM!! Fair food...

Bowling

Dad took today off. We took the boys bowling - a first for our family. They LOVED it! Our oldest got the only strike of the day! He was pretty psyched. It was a fun way to spend the morning.

This afternoon we worked on the mares' pen, freeing up some round pen panels in order to make a round pen. This evening I worked with both Lily & Tillie in the round pen. Lily was an angel, but Tillie ALMOST bucked me off. I was NOT happy with her...

Topsham Fair Penning

Okay, I'm back! Last week was a REALLY tough week, so I didn't get to write, but yesterday was AWESOME!! I took Kitch to the Topsham Fair for Team Penning. He did GREAT!! Now that he's realized that I'm comfortable with him turning it on, boy does he ever turn it on!! That horse can RUN!! He can also cut cows really well and get aggressive with them when they don't cooperate.

Our first run was in the Open Division, which I generally don't ride in because as a beginner there's not much chance. But, anything CAN happen, and it almost did! We had 2 fantastic runs and we were only 10 seconds out of the money!! That gave me a huge boost of confidence. However, our one Pro-Nov run blew up in very short order, oh well.

We had 5 runs in the Novice Division and that was WICKED fun!! We were really making things happen - not always the right thing, but I'm learning not to sit on my laurels. I'm also learning to use my voice and communicate with my team members, and also with the cows. So much so, that my throat hurt! ;-) It is SUCH a RUSH to pen cows!! People were teasing me about how much I was smiling....

One of my teams came in 4th place!!!!!! We won $53!! YEAH!!!! I NEVER expected to win anything in this, my first year! Our first run was pretty good, but the second run was like deja vu. At the last penning, I rode with one of the same girls and our run was dq'd because I made a mistake by standing there at the wing, waiting for her to come down and sweep. She didn't get there in time and people criticized me for just sitting there. Apparently, even if the run blew up 'cause I lost the cows trying to pen them by myself, at least I would have tried. When we were ready to pen our cows, that same scenario was suddenly in front of me - 1 team member was already in the hole. I was standing at the wing and I looked back and here she came to sweep, but she was still way back at the foul line! What to do? I went in and did a slow sweep so that she would have time to get to the wing to help guide the cows into the pen. It worked perfectly and we got a GREAT time!! But, I could hear lots of yelling - her yelling at me not to leave the wing, and all the other riders yelling at her that I was doing what I should do!! I felt vindicated!! Apparently after she exited the arena a bunch of the more experienced penners gave her a hard time about not praising me for stepping it up and taking that chance, so she came over and apologized to me. I told her that wasn't necessary 'cause it was a perfect reenactment of what should have happened the last time and I'm just soooo glad that I learned my lesson and that it worked out so well!! She was happy and felt much better....And that was the run that got us the money - YIPPEE!!

Gaming!

Last night I took Kitch up to Andover to try poles and barrels. He did AWESOME!! It was my first time ever to run like that, but I just let him go and away we went. We were 2nd in Senior Novice Pole Bending, 4th in Speed, Action & Control, 4th in Senior Novice Single Pole, 4th in Senior Novice 4-Pole Keyhole, 4th in Senior Novice Cloverleaf Barrels, 4th in Senior Novice Speed Barrels and 6th in 3D Cloverleaf Barrels(Open). It was terrifying to run that fast, but on the other hand it was FUN and I can't wait to do it again!! I'm definitely hooked...

Guitar!!

Well, my hands are worse, instead of better....Dad brought home a guitar! It's a Fender acoustical with built-in tuner. It sounds great! Boy, no one told me until after I got started that it really hurts to play at first. I guess I'm waiting for calluses to develop. I'm also finding it really hard to hold because I'm so short and my arms are too. The guitar seems HUGE. But, I LOVE the sound and am anxious to learn how to play it. We also got the boys a kid sized version, so that they can learn to play as well.

Fencing...

The boys and I hung up the birdhouse today! I let them pick the tree, which is just on the other side of the stone wall at the edge of the back lawn. It looks very pretty there and it sure does catch your eye! Hopefully it will catch a pair of birds' eyes next spring...

In this weather, high heat, high humidity, it's probably stupid to even think about doing physical labor, but I decided to put in that fenceline anyway. Well, until I felt naseous, then I took a break - it's that kind of day! But, I FINALLY got the fence built from the back of the driveway, down to the stone wall. Once I get the front fence built along the driveway, the mares can go there. Considering all the blisters on my hands now, I'm kinda glad that I ran out of materials before I could start the front part. Instead I mowed the lawn - which hurt my hands like crazy! Oh well, I should have worn gloves, I just couldn't handle them in this heat.

Progress report...

Today I met with the summer school teacher to hear how well our son has been doing for the last 4 weeks. He's been doing GREAT!! She had loads of good things to say about him, he has been very confident, helpful and well behaved. He has made friends and enjoyed being at the top of the class for a change. No wonder I've seen a vast improvement in his reading at home. Yeah!!

I just spoke to Dad in Atlanta. He got bit by bedbugs last night! Yuck!! He says
that's the last time he'll let the company put him in a cheap hotel...

He's been keeping me up to date all day during his travels home. He was able to catch an earlier flight to Boston, so he'll be home any minute now....

Flying...

Dad is flying to Atlanta for work today. He's been anxious about the trip for several days and I have received several phone calls from him today. He HATES to fly!! He'll be back tomorrow evening, so it's just a quick trip this time. He just called to say that he made it in safe and they gave him the same car that we have here at home for a rental! An Ion. What a funny coincidence...

I grabbed the boys for a group shot to send to Daddy in Atlanta. I also wanted another picture of my Clivia, which is now completely open and has been for several days, so I know that it will be fading soon. You'll notice who is wearing the leash. Yes, they are heading out to play in the sprinkler, so I'm babysitting the Tamagotchi....

Our wild & crazy kids....

Making adjustments...

Right in the face!!

This morning my great-uncle came to visit, along with my 2nd cousins. (or once removed, or something) Anyway, we had a chance to catch up, share stories and also to take a tour of the farm and enjoy the animals. The horses all came up for some lovin', which they enjoyed. My great-uncle was a farmer before age caught up to him, so he always likes to come and see the critters when he can get someone to bring him up.

The tomatoes are ripening...