September 30th, 2012

Last day of September.   Tomorrow is October 1st.   I can't believe time is passing by so quickly.    My last post was so long ago.  I finally wrote about the wedding that Gato was in (see last post) but now I'm behind on the Dances With Horses event.   I still need to write about all that happened there.

These days are filling up with activity.  The farm is so active lately.   Riding lesson students coming and going. I know I said I wanted to eventually get up to 4 a day.   Right now I'm at two, sometimes three a day ... and I'm BEAT!   I've picked up four new boarders.   Two in stalls and two in the pasture.    That means we go through more round bales and more square bales and lots more shavings.   More trips to town ..... more daily work with cleaning and maintenance.   It's all good.   It's nice to be generating  a little income.  Things are looking up.     This is quickly becoming a full time job.

October is packed with activity.   Lessons are holding strong .... I've got a couple more potential boarders lined up .... and Gato and I have booked three events this month.   We're doing Pumpkins and Ponies on October13th in Humboldt, Boo At the Zoo 20th - 21st in Belvidere, IL and the Dressage Classic on the 27th at the Kirkwood Equestrian Center in Cedar Rapids.     Three weekends in a row!    PHEW!!!    I'm hoping that things hold strong through the winter and nothing drops off.    Right now there is nothing booked in Nov/Dec/Jan for Gato but that is typical because of the harsh weather.   Not many festivals or fairs during the winter.    I hope the kids all continue to pursue their lessons when it starts getting cold.   It will be really easy to lose some clients in the cold weather.  I'm hoping that doesn't happen, though.   Hoping to get a few more boarders before winter yet. to fill the barn and pastures up.  Yep, I'm seeing it's like the picture says above --- STRENGTH ...... Sometimes you have to be your own knight in shining armor.   :o)


Right now I'm taking things day by day.   Things definitely aren't the way they used to be.   Things aren't the way they're SUPPOSED to be.   Life shouldn't be this hard.

...but it is.   and as hard as it is and as different as it is .... I guess it's not so horrible.   It could always be worse.

 I've met many new people in the last two months since deciding to really try to make this farm self sufficient.   Lots of great new people.    ....and I've reconnected with some loyal old friends that I'm finding will always be there for me.   I'm not quite there yet, but I'm getting pretty close.   I think I'm going to scream if I hear someone tell me that 'everything happens for a reason' ......but I'm starting to think that maybe there's something to that.   Maybe I'm just wound a little too tight and I need to relax a little for a change.    Just go with the flow and really appreciate and be grateful for each and every day I am blessed to be out here on the farm with all my animals.    I need to continue to try to wipe out the picture in my head of how it is SUPPOSED to be and replace it with the picture of how it IS and just continue on this journey that is my life.   

Reddy/Dee Indian Wedding ....

Oh my goodness….. so many things happening here at Dragonfire Dancing Horses! I almost don’t have time to think let alone catch up on my blogging. :o) I know I said I would get on here and talk about our last Dancing Horse outing – the wedding. Where should I begin?!
We arrived at the Arboretum an hour early so we had plenty of time to get ready. Both girls had other plans so I brought along my new friends, Deb and Jessica. They’ve both been taking riding lessons from me and wanted to come along and help and I graciously accepted their offer. I couldn’t have done it without them. Deb commemorated the event with the camera and took many beautiful shots. You can see them if you go to our facebook page and go into the photo gallery and find the “Indian Wedding.”

Jessica helped me get Gato dressed up in his new red and gold baraat costume. He looked beautiful. He looked so grande with his new red plume and shiny new costume. I was so proud of him as he stood quietly with his ears up taking picture after picture after picture. I would have to say there were more cameras at this event than I’ve ever seen before. Paparazzi EVERYWHERE! All the wedding guests came up one by one to get their picture taken with the baraat horse and to pet him. He only snorted on one poor lady. I was mortified. She was in her nice wedding outfit. She laughed and said …. “That’s ok …. I have horses, too. I’m used to it!” Phew!!

The excitement didn’t begin until Kevin (groom) actually came out. I found out that he was actually ALLERGIC to horses. He never mentioned that the last time we got together for the rehearsal. Apparently he had a bad reaction to touching Gato the last time he rode him. His sister told us about it but said he had taken a lot of benedryl and antihistamines that morning to try to counter an allergy attack. What a great guy to go through all this for his new bride. I also found out that he was not only allergic to horses but was TERRIFIED of them as well. I was so impressed that he agreed to go through with all this for his new bride and family in order to not disturb the tradition. He whispered to me as he went to get on that he was going to try not to actually ‘touch’ Gato at all if it was possible. I just laughed. I could tell he was nervous. I tried to reassure him that everything will be ok ….. but part of me was kind of nervous too since there were SO MANY people there and I’ve never done this before.

Well, he got kind of stuck as he went to get on Gato. His sari/gown/costume or whatever you call it wouldn’t go AROUND to saddle. Uh oh ….. Luckily Gato stood very quietly while we all tried to jimmy rig his outfit so he could sit on top of him. We had another round of pictures with about 100 cameras firing off. Then the little ring bearer came out and they threw him up in front of Kevin. I looked at him and said “Sweetie, you hold on TIGHT to this saddle horn right here, ok?!” He just blankly stared at me. Deb asked his mom if he was going to be ok. His mom said this is day three of this wedding and this kid is so tired he has no idea what’s going on around him. He’s shot. Well, he looked like it. He was a zombie. At least he was too tired to be afraid. :o)

Then they said – “OK! We’re ready!!” ….and the music started. I started slowly leading Gato and maneuvering him behind this little mini van they had with music blaring out the back end. The big crowd of people gathered behind us. This is something I learned was a bad thing. The next time (if there ever is a next time) we will know to have the crowd go IN FRONT of us not behind us. That was making Gato incredibly nervous. At first he was actually having a lot of fun. He loves loud music and instantly started dancing. The Indian music sounded a bit like Spanish music. It had the same beat ….. so he started prancing on the line right away. Unfortunately, Kevin didn’t realize Gato was actually dancing and he got nervous. Gato’s dancing is sort of bouncy. Then when the wedding party started dancing and throwing their hands in the air and yelling ….. that’s when Gato lost it and spun around to see what was behind him. I was holding him as tight as I could but I couldn’t stop him from spinning around me. The little ring bearer was still a zombie …. No reaction. Kevin was like me ….. scared but still smiling. Both of us knew the show must go on so neither of us could show that we were in the least bit upset. Through his smile he asked me ….. um … are we ok? Through my smile I told him back ….. Yep, we’re doing ok. Everything is ok. Then the bride’s mom came up and suggested that maybe the wedding party go IN FRONT of Gato instead of behind. PHEW! I’m so glad she said that. They all filed around us and went in front and Gato instantly calmed down. We decided to continue on a little ways further down. We never did make it all the way around to the alter like we were originally supposed to. Kevin and the little ring bearer ended up getting off before we hit the gravel part. Kevin continued on foot dancing with his friends and Gato and I continued on behind everyone dancing in hand. The whole thing lasted about 15 minutes ….. it was so very fun. :o) I hope we get invited to do it again for another wedding. I think Gato enjoyed himself even though he got spooked momentarily by the crowd that one time. :o)

Monday - September 10

Wow, I don't even know where to start. I've been meaning to get on here and update everybody on the happenings around the farm but as life goes on and continues to happen, the days go by so quickly lately.

The new venture I've undertaken giving riding lessons is really exploding. I'm up to 10 official students and another 3 mom's may want to start up during the day while the kids are in school. I'm trying to get used to shifting my work schedule to '2nd shift' as right now all my students are school kids that don't get out of school until around 3ish. I have been REALLY busy from 3 - 9pm it seems. This place is starting to really liven up after school.

I've been trying to keep up with normal tasks and maintenance during the day when I'm here by myself. Been getting a lot of things fixed and ready for winter. I'm getting more and more comfortable learning how to operate a lot of the tools around here and gradually learning how a lot of the things work that I never put much thought into in the past since Russ always took care of those types of things. Like the water pumps .... and how they work .... and where the shut off valves are .... and where the well is and what's in the well ..... the septic system and how it works and should be maintained .... where all the breakers and electrical boxes scattered everywhere are around the farm. I've lived here for over 20 years but never had to deal with any of that so I just didn't. Now I know. It's not really that hard. Just have to learn it all.

In among all of this 'learning' ..... I had a new little guest appear last Wednesday morning at my doorstep. A tiny, little chihuahua dog was sitting outside when I let the other dogs out to pee. He has a noticable collar mark around his neck so I automatically assumed that he somehow slipped his collar and got away from his family and wandered to the farm somehow. I called the local vet, the cops, and KLMJ (a local radio station) and told them all that he was here in case his family called looking for him. In the meantime he has settled in quite nicely with all the other dogs and seems to be taking to farm life very well. He rides in a car very well ..... sleeps on my bed...... drinks out of my water glass on the table ..... pees on everything in the house ..... yep, he fits right in with everyone else. :o) It's now Monday and I haven't heard anything from anyone trying to find him. I have named him Paco ...... and am hoping his family finds him soon before I get too attached to him. He is a little sweetie. Oh .... and he graciously brought a nice house warming gift with him ..... fleas. So now eveybody is itching. I haven't had fleas in years here. Crap. When you have 12 dogs, fleas are NOT fun. Oh well, I know it was a matter of time before I got them again. I know they'll be gone when it freezes out but in the meantime I'm headed to petmeds.com to try to get some cheap advantage to try to combat the little pests before winter. Just one more thing to have to deal with ...

I also have a new horse here on the farm -- Justa Chief. One of the families taking lessons wanted to buy their own horse and board out here. I helped them find Chief and we all absolutely love him. Supposedly he was a son of a gun out in a pasture with a group of horses -- very dominant. He was gelded late in life and they said he is very mean to other horses. I told the family ... well, he can't be any meaner than Reymond, so let's just turn them all out together and watch the rodeo. Turns out they weren't completely accurate. No fireworks. No kicking. No squealing. Nothing. Reymond and Chief are best friends now. He is loving life living in the pasture and having his new family dote all over him. It is a very good fit all the way around.

Now I'm looking for two more just like him. That same family would like another one and a new client would like one, too. That will make three more boarders. It is looking like Dragonfire Dancing Horses may just make it as a self sufficient farm. I still need 10-15 more full time students so I can get up to 4 a day Mon-Sat and I need a few more boarders for that extra cash flow to keep things operational. I am sleeping a little better knowing that things just may work out ......I'm still not out of the water yet but I'm getting closer all the time.

The last big 'issue' that has risen is my big computer took a big dump last week. ....and to top it all off, my external hard drive that I use as my back up drive .... that I thought was perfectly safe and could never be affected by a virus ...... was knocked out, too. I've got info back to 1990 on that thing. Tens of THOUSANDS of pics. Not exaggerating. Seriously. Over 40 websites are housed on that thing. Tax records, business records, all our KnR info for the past 20 years. Yeah. Scary. You may say --- well, you should have backed it all up. That WAS my back up drive. I didn't think a virus could get to it. Apparently it can. The good news is that it is still showing that drive has info on it even though I can't see it. It's in there. I just need someone smarter than me to pull it out of there and bring it back to life. I am praying that they can fix it or I'm pretty screwed.

Oh, and in the midst of all this activity ...... Buddy has gone blind. Yep. One of my Rat Terriers. He was dumped off here about 10 years ago. Skin and bones. Scared to death. We nursed him back to health and he has been a great little dog since then. No issues whatsoever. A couple weeks ago he was slightly congested. Sounded like his sinuses were filled up. He was all congested in his nose but it wasn't runny at all. No fever. No other symptoms of a virus or sickness .... just congested nose. He had a hard time breathing through his nose so he started breathing through his mouth. I figured it was allergies or maybe just a bad cold. Well, all of a sudden I noticed on Saturday that he was walking around really weird with his eyes bugging out and his ears pricked forward ....... and was running into walls. I watched him a while ..... yep, he is completely BLIND. Can't see anything. I don't know if it was a slow thing or if it just hit but all I know is he can't see ANYTHING right now. He was perfectly find three weeks ago. Sniffly nose a couple weeks ago . Now completely and totally blind. I took him into the vet this morning. Zach is stumped.. No fever. No signs of illness (other than the snuffly nose). He drew blood. We're going to check for normal signs of cancer or raised white blood cell activity. We're both at a loss as to what could have possibly happened to him all of a sudden. SO ..... on top of everything else going on ..... I now have a blind dog to deal with. I had a blind dog a few years ago. Maggie (another rat terrier we had here) went blind. She had seizures and was a sickly dog. She lived several months after going blind but then had a bought of several seizures one Sunday and passed away. I never realized how much i had gone out of my way to care for Maggie around the farm while she was here until she passed away. It was like a weight had lifted. She peed everywhere because she couldn't see where she was. She would wander out on the road if I wasn't watching her all the time. She would walk right off the porch not knowing where the end was so I had to put a rail up to try to keep her on so she wouldn't fall and break a bone. She would wander into the pastures with the donkeys and horses and not get out of the way when they would run around her. She got pounded a couple times before I could get her out. She kept running into things and wandering away from the house. I finally put a radio out on the porch and kept it running so she could hear noise and always be able to find the porch back again if she wandered away when I was outside. It was really nerve wracking trying to always watch out for her without keeping her penned up 24/7. I felt bad keeping her in a kennel all the time so I would let her out to walk around but then would get sidetracked and away she'd wander......I'm not looking forward to another one like that but I'll do it. I'll do whatever it takes to take care of Buddy. He's been a great companion for me all these years so I'm not going to abandon him at his time of need. I keep telling him that I won't leave him...... he'll be ok. Just stay with mom and everything will be ok. He follows my voice outside and sticks close to me. I am praying this is just temporary and Zach will come back and tell me it's just pressure on his optic nerve or something fixable. I really hope it isn't permanent. He's so scared right now.

Ok .... well, that's all the excitement happening around here right now. Lots more stories to write about but I think I'll close for now and tell you all about the Indian Wedding and our other adventures in another post. :o) Sorry no pics but they're all on the external drive. I sure hope they get that all back for me.......

A Very Quiet Saturday...

Hi Everybody. I never did take time and write about last weekend's excursion over to Miller Training Stables. I volunteered to participate in the "Inner City Slickers" event that Cindy Corwin had organized. ICS is a program put together by Michael McMeel to benefit "at-risk" teens by getting them together in a safe environment and allowing them to experience the joy of horses and being on a farm. There were 16 kids that participated and I think there were around 30 adult volunteers. It started at 10 and went until 4. The day started with Michael introducing himself to the kids. He talked to them about trust and friendship and how tough life is in general but assured them that there will always be someone out there to help. They just have to be open to accept it. After his talk, Abbie brought out one of her older lesson horses, Classy, and Michael told the kids about horses and how to lead them and just be around them. A few of the kids got to lead Classy around the yard. Then we all proceeded to the "Trust Fall" where the kids crawled up a ladder and had to 'trust' the adults to catch them when they fell backwards. The kids were skeptical at first but as a few did it then everyone wanted to do it. :o) Then we all went in and cleaned some of Abbie's stalls. After that was done I helped Gail and Karen get lunch ready for everyone while they all went over and lined up to do an exercise on 'conflict resolution'. We all had a delicious lunch of grilled hamburgers, hot dogs, potato and macaroni salads, chips, cookies, and some very creative cupcakes baked in ice cream cones. :o) After that Abbie got out some more lesson horses and the kids got to ride around on them bareback to experience riding. The afternoon ended with everyone getting on the 'bucking barrel'. A barrel suspended in the air that is manipulated like a mechanical bull that you see at fairs and other events. The kids had a blast riding it. :o) The day ended at 4pm and we all said our goodbyes. It was a great day.

This Saturday is a little different. No more parades. It's September 1st. Fall is on it's way in. Krystle is camping and Dani is off to Arizona to spend the holiday weekend with her sister and other family out there. I'm spending the day alone. It's weird. A few short years ago this would have been the busiest day of the year for me. .... well, really the busiest week. By this time I would have had a total of 3 0r 4 hours of sleep in 5 days. I remember it wasn't too long ago when I was running the big Gold Star show down in Des Moines. That was such a rush. I loved that show. I loved all the parties, meeting new people every year, but the most fun I had was when something went wrong and I had to solve the problems. I felt so important and needed. I'm afraid I took a lot of things for granted back then. I didn't really take the time to really enjoy the awesome rooms at the Marriott .... the fabulous parties and all the wonderful variety of food and drinks everywhere you walked .... all the activities and people around everywhere asking me to help them. I remember when I was so tired and hadn't slept at all for several days wishing that I could just once spend a quiet Labor Day weekend at home ...by myself .... not having to rush around and worry about everything. You know what they say ... "Be careful what you wish for .... because some day it might come true." So now today .... Labor Day Saturday .... a day that once was filled with all kinds of activity and people is now exactly what I wished for. I'll be spending the day alone here on the farm with my animals. I will likely putter around and get ready for the wedding that Gato is in tomorrow at the Arburetum in Madrid. That will be a lot of fun. :o) I have to get his new red and gold costume fitted to him and make sure his bridle and new plume are set and ready to go. I still haven't gotten the bells that go on his back legs figured out yet. I think I'll work on that this afternoon.

Make sure you all watch our facebook page for pictures of tomorrow's event! I have a feeling it will be absolutely BEAUTIFUL! I can't wait!! :o)