Spiritual Dodgeball

Russ and I always used to say -- "Life is a game ... and we play to win." Funny how competitive we both were. Looking back it all seems like that was so long ago and another whole life that I just can't even relate to right now. Things always were perfect. Everything went right back then. If something went wrong ... no worries, we fixed it. Together. We were an unstoppable team. Nothing was a big deal.
Well, I'm here today ....right now ....by myself ... and I'm still playing this game of life but the game has changed and now it seems like I'm no longer playing to win ... I'm all alone just fighting to stay in. It seems like everytime I turn around some new bad thing pops up. Over and over ..... it seems like NOTHING is right. If I have a good day three terrible ones follow. The game has now changed to a supernatural game of Dodgeball with the Devil throwing huge piles of crap at my head trying to get me out. ...and just when I think I can't go anymore and I want to throw in the towel and quit, I look at the faces of my little animals ... my puppies, my donkeys, and that little shit head - Oopsie - as he looks up and smiles at me ..... and I think I can't quit yet. I need to keep ducking and weaving and stay in this dodgeball game of life. .....for them.

I had a dream .... the Devil got a big, juicy pile of crap and threw it as hard as he could directly at my head and I panic and freeze .... but then God jumped in front of me and blocked it. SPLAT -- took it all over his white robe .... and in his beard. It was gross. ...but I was safe. I'm still in the game. Suck it Satan .... you're gonna have to throw a lot harder than that .... I'm in this game ....I've got God on my side blocking all your shit.... and I'm gonna play to win. (**yeah probably not the prettiest analogy ..... but whatever, that's how my mind works :o)

Hot, Hot, HOT!

OMG!! It's freaking HOT IN HERE! Air conditioner completely quit right in the middle of this heat wave. I called early this morning but I'm sixth on their list for the day. They said they'd TRY to get out here by this afternoon. I don't know how people can live without air conditioning in weather like this. This is MISERABLE! I know growing up we didn't have central air --- but I had forgotten how uncomfortable it is during these long bouts of heat. The dogs are all laying around me panting like crazy. Cally is over by the window, Jack Black is beside me beached out like a whale, Buddy and Baby Girl are behind me, Boo and Stripey are under my chair...... We're all miserable right now.

I worked getting the feathers on our outfits for Wednesday. Again .... MISERABLE working when you can't breathe!! I think it's actually cooler OUTSIDE than it is in this house. I took my truck into town to get worked on this morning so I'm out here without a vehicle. ....so I can't go shopping or go do anything to get away from the heat. I'd feel guilty leaving all the puppies behind anyway. I sure hope they get here this afternoon. I should be outside working but I'm not doing that when I can't come back in and cool off. So I have no cool stories today ... literally.

Hopefully I'll have to put on a sweater sitting here typing tomorrow...... :o)

Blue Baling Twine?

Got hay today. It had pretty BLUE baling twine on it. I've never seen that before. I thought twine came in yucky original tan color or cool, unbreakable plastic neon orange that kills your hands. This time I got BLUE! :o) I wonder if it comes in PINK? or NEON GREEN? FLOURESCENT YELLOW? I could call my hay guy and say ... "I would like 5 blue, 5 pink, and 5 green ones today please." You can bet I'll be saving the string off these bales to make something pretty!! If there are any twine makers out there reading this .... please do pink next time. FYI .... There are LOTS of girls that are working with this hay that would very much enjoy pink twine.

SO yeah ..... not many stories today. It was Hoooooooot again. I think my air conditioner is broken. I need to call someone to come look at it. It just seems to get worse as this heat continues on. I have all the curtains pulled shut and I brought all the fans in from the barn to set up at each register to try to pull what little cold air is coming through out. It's pretty bad when my barn is cooler than my house. I just got done doing chores -- I didn't let Gato out today......just too freaking HOT out there. Been watching Ducky really close (llama). After I lost Fluffy (llama) last year in that heat run, I'm worried that Ducky might go down but he seems to be taking it pretty well. As long as it keeps dipping into the 60's at night I think that rejuvenates him. The other horses and ponies outside are all ok. Dogs are trashed. All I have to do is go outside for a few minutes and walk around and they've had it. Old Happy is going downhill fast. I don't think he'll be with us much longer. He really can't take this heat. I took him to get hay with me today. Figured it may be one of his last trips so I'll keep taking him with me each time I go.

Um .... as I look around that could well be part of my problem. Corky is laying completely over top of one cold register on the floor .... her whole Corgi body is covering the entire thing. .... and then across the room Buffy (Australian Shepherd) is completely covering another one. ...and yep, Jackie is laying over another one ...... and sure, there's Kiki half over the other one in the front room. No wonder no cold air is coming out. ....and as I type this I just heard Lucy plop over the register in the kitchen by the door. ....(big sigh) .... oh well, as long as they're comfortable I guess. :o)

So yeah ...... no gate got built today. ...but during my laziness playing on the computer, I did find a driver for the big truck in the Humboldt Parade. Our Dragonfire Parade Team is complete for the 4th on Wednesday. A big THANK YOU to Dannielle Lease, Mary Miner, and Susan Skow for agreeing to help me out. It'll be me on Gato, Krystle on Huck, Dannielle on Tess, (we'll be in our traditional RED , WHITE , and BLUE OUTFITS!! :o) ..... Susan driving the big rig, and Mary will be our official photographer for the event. I can't wait! :o) This is going to be so much fun!! ....so if anyone out there lives around the Humboldt area ..... 7pm .... 4th of July Parade ..... Humboldt, Iowa. Dragonfire Dancing Horses will be in attendance featuring "El Gato" the dancing horse!! :o) See ya all there!!

I Can FLY!!

Had an absolute BLAST at the Coulter Parade today. A few different people asked us if we'd been in the parade before. I told them .... yep, we've been here before a couple years ago. They all said -- I thought so! We remember you!! :o) That felt good.

I was a little disappointed this trip ..... we usually have a full parade team with us everywhere we go. Complete with riders, paparrazi (photographer), truck driver, and sometimes pooper scooper (we like to call these guys 'security' :o) ....but lately it's been hard to put our 'parade team' together each weekend. We had to cancel the Sturgis parade because we couldn't get all the people together that we needed. .... but that was ok because we got to lead the Ellsworth Parade instead last weekend. This weekend we took off without a truck driver or a photographer. We had three riders ...... no picture taker ...... no truck with flags. No truck is ok. Especially in a small parade like this one. but no picture taker really sucks. I love pictures. ....and this time we had some really neat outfits. We decided to do our best and try to get as many pictures before and after the parade that we could. Plus Dani and Krystle had their cell phones on them and they clicked some pics with their phones -- the one above was taken with Dani's phone. :o)

Well, we didn't lead this parade like the Ellsworth Parade last weekend. We brought up the very end. Last. I almost like that better than first. Then all the people are warmed up for you. Plus you kind of get to see the rest of the parade that way. I wore my new Isis wings that i got on ebay. Cost me $11. with shipping. :o) I love them!! The girls have decided that they each need some and we need more colors. :o) I just love dressing up. :o)

...but the bad news -- no photographer. Great outfits and no photographer. Crap. but what started out as a negative turned out very positive. It, once again, showed me that we can do this. We can't get discouraged .... we just need to keep moving forward. I keep forgetting that we live in the Midwest .... where people are always ready to help you no matter what. Just when the girls and I gave up hope that we would get a group picture together without a photographer ...... here walks over the Meyer family. We've never met them before. They saw us in the parade and their two daughters wanted to come and pet the horses before we left. I asked them if they might do us a HUGE favor and maybe grab my camera out of the front seat of my truck and take our picture together?? She laughed and said, "I was going to ask you if you'd mind if I took your picture with my daughters!! Well, it turns out that their girls just got back from a horse camp in southern Iowa where they took riding lessons. I told them that I was going to be starting riding lessons at the farm. :o) How convenient!! They said they had driven by our place many times. So ....yeah ..... we ended up getting a bunch of group pictures AND met a great new family who doesn't live far from us. I learned from this that you may start out alone but there is always someone around who can help. People are great. I need to have more confidence that if I do get out there by myself somewhere and needed a helping hand to do something -- I can find one. I need to be brave and when I'm too scared to go somewhere ..... I need to suck it up and just GO. I need to remember that it's always better to TRY rather than sit at home and keep going over all the reasons why you CAN'T do something ..... It's better to get out there and DO whatever you can. Just Go. Everything will work out and you will meet more people and even more doors will open up for you.

Wednesday (the 4th of July) we've been invited to ride in the Humboldt 4th of July Parade at 7pm. Krystle and Danielle Lease are going with me to ride Huck and Tess. I have a photographer -- just no truck driver yet. This is a big parade so I really would like the truck leading us with the flags out the back. ....but if we can't find anyone, it's ok. We'll just go without the truck. The Humboldt Chamber and Fair Board have shown an interest in having Gato and I do something at their fair the end of July so we're going so they can see us. Then, if nobody asks us to go anywhere else, we may just travel to the big town of Buckeye on the 7th and ride through their little town parade. Krystle, Dani, and I rode in their parade years and years and YEARS ago. I think Dani was like 10 or something. She rode Ebony. Krystle was on Starfire and I was on Lacey. That was seriously a lifetime ago if seems. Not sure who all is going with me to that one but I'm not going to worry about it --- it'll all work itself out and it'll be a fun day no matter what happens.

Other than the parade, I'm afraid not much work got done today. It was SOOOOO hot outside!! I feel like I was incredibly lazy. I made lunch for the girls after we got all unloaded. Then they took off to go take care of things they needed to do. I downloaded all the parade pics then laid down and took a nap. Got up and headed outside in the heat. Let Gato out for a little while. Went to get a round bale in Aredale. Got home and got all the minis and llama in the top pasture and locked them in there while I dropped the bale in their bottom pasture. Then let them all back out in there once I got the duelly out of there. Worked on cleaning up the barn (looked like a tornado went through there after getting ready for the parade :o), then gave Gato, Huck, Tess, and Reymond their supper and now I'm back inside. The puppies are all out cold laying on the floor all around me. They can't take this heat either.

I'm lined up to go get square bales tomorrow morning early and then i have the nasty job of unloading. I'm getting used to doing it all myself. I'm actually getting into pretty good shape doing all this farm work myself. I usually only get a few bales so I don't completely kill myself but I think I'm gonna go for a full truckload tomorrow. I have all day to unload them. I think I might attempt to build a gate for the little run off the top barn. Never done that before but I have all the stuff I need to make one ...... just gotta try. If I don't at least TRY to make one, I'll never know if I could.

That's all that's happening around here today. I'll be back tomorrow. Hopefully with a picture of a brand new gate hanging on my pen. ?? We'll see ........

Coulter Parade Tomorrow!!

Big News of the Day!! I caught my pony!! ...well, really Krystle caught my pony. She came over last night to help me round her up because the farrier is coming today. She ran a little bit then gave up pretty quick once she realized both of us were after her. Just like Tina. She does the same thing. I put her in a stall overnight so I wouldn't have to worry about catching her again when the farrier gets here this afternoon.

I'll be getting ready today for the big COULTER PARADE tomorrow. We didn't ride in this parade last year but we did two years ago. I rode Gato and the kids (Breanna and Brandon) rode Huck and Tess while Dani led them and Lexi walked throwing candy. I remember this was the first parade I actually rode Gato in back in 2010. I had ridden him at the Iowa Horse Fair in April 2010 and carrying the flag at the Spring Show in Cedar Rapids in May 2010 ...... but hadn't ridden him since then. I remember we couldn't get him loaded into the trailer with Huck and Tess because he was screaming and kicking so badly..... so we made two trips. Gato was still a stallion back then. We took Huck and Tess over then went home and got Gato and brought Gato over. Coulter is only 5 miles from the farm so it's not a big trip. Funny how many things change in two years. Two years ago at this time I was still scared to death of that horse not knowing him very well. I had a blast at that parade. He did great that day. We made two trips home I remember so we didn't have to put him in the trailer with the other horses. Man, how time changes things.

Coulter is about as big as Ellsworth so I'm guessing the whole parade ride through town will be about 10 minutes long. ....kinda like Ellsworth's. It should be a fun morning out. Not sure what we'll be wearing. I'm sort of leaning toward trying out my new pink, metallic isis wings ?? Haven't worn them on Gato yet since I got them. Not really sure if they'll work or not? I should really probably try them out first but what the heck ...... theyll be fine. I'll just put them on tomorrow and wing it. Hahahaha! Get it?? 'wing it' ..... with my isis wings. ok ... yeah, I'm tired.

So if there's anybody out there reading this that isn't doing anything tomorrow (Saturday June 30th) around 10:30ish to about 11:30ish, wanna come over to Coulter and drive the duelly and ride in the back of the truck and take pics ? I have no driver or photographer. Figured we'd just go without if nobody popped up. .... Even though I hate to do ANYTHING without paparrazi. I'm a picture fanatic. I figure when I'm old and grey, sitting in a nursing home all by myself someday I'll have my ipad in front of me looking at all my pictures reliving all the great times I had thoughout my life. The pictures in this blog are from the 2010 Coulter Parade which seems like a lifetime ago. Things were so much simpler then. If anybody's interested in a 'blast from the past' here's a link to the 2010 Coulter Parade photo gallery -- Gato's very first parade with me on board. http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1503351301622.2067303.1169403749&type=3

Right? Wrong? ...or just DIFFERENT...

A friend of mine asked me a question yesterday about something her riding instructor told her. It was sort of off the wall and my first response was to tell her ….. yeah, she’s nuts. That’s not anywhere near right. …but I stopped and changed my thought process a bit. ….and I thought my answer to her would be a good subject for the blog today. :o)

As I sat here thinking how wrong that instructor was, I reflected back to when my daughters were taking riding lessons. …from the many, MANY different trainers we had our horses with over time. I remember Krystle telling me – "But Mom, Carol said to do it this way but Abbie says to do it this way and then Deb told me something totally different. Which way is right?" Dani had the same problem …. Stephie told her one thing and Sheena told her another. How are they going to know who is right and who is wrong?? Who do they follow?

I learned a loooong time ago in dealing with horses that there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way. There is just ‘different’. ….and no two people teach or train the same way. No two people ride the same way. Like no two people think the same way. That’s what makes trainers lives so hard. They have to try to teach that horse to respond to different people the same way….. and everybody is different.

We took our horses to lots of different trainers over the last 20 years and I learned real fast that I need to just sit back, shut up, and watch. There weren’t too many times that I was disappointed with what resulted but there were a lot of times I was very confused by the ‘process’ and wondered what the heck they were doing to my horse. Very few times did we actually pull a horse out because the trainer was nuts. Almost always the horse came out very well after a few months with that person. …. But everybody approached training that horse differently. …and by standing back and watching I have learned a lot. I have also learned that every horse is different and there’s no manual that gives you all the answers so the more knowledge you gather over your journey working with these animals, the more effective you are.

SO ….. going back to my friend’s question and Krystle and Dani’s question … how do you know what is right? Who do you listen to? I told them all …. When you are with a trainer or any teacher, you need to do what they tell you to do. Cut and dry. The person you are with at the time is absolutely right. That's who you listen to. Try to understand as much as they’re telling you. Try to absorb all the information they give you. Ask question but NEVER question their knowledge or insinuate that they aren’t doing something right. NEVER say to a trainer that another trainer told you to do it another way. When you are with someone and have asked them to teach you what they know ….. shut up and listen to what they are telling you and do what they say the best way you can. This is what they’ve learned in their lifetime. It may not be what your other teacher learned in his or her lifetime. This one had different experiences and has learned to do things differently. You continue to learn as much as you can from that person and whenever possible you go out and find other clinics or instructors to learn from them as well.

In the end you put everything you’ve learned together and you now have even MORE information than they individually each have. You put it all together and do what works for you. If you close your mind to different ways to doing things then you get stuck in your riding ability, and in life in general. If you open yourself up to other ideas then you become even more powerful and are able to store that information in your memory until you may need it someday. It may not be something you use right now today – but someday you may come across a horse that isn’t responding to anything you try …. And you pull out this tactic you learned years before at a clinic somewhere that at the time you thought was pretty off the wall…… and you find that it works.

So my advice to my friend and my advice at all times to my daughters was -- You always, ALWAYS respect your teacher/trainer/or judge. No matter how nuts their instructions or decisions are. You learn as much as you can from them, be grateful that they are kind enough to tell you what they know, and when it’s time and you’re ready …..thank them and move onto the next teacher so you can continue to learn even more.

I still think the things that instructor told my friend were a little ‘wacky’ …but you know what – if the end result after a few months of riding is that my friend can stay on that horse and make it walk, trot, and canter on cue and not jerk the horse or herself around …. Then she did it. It wasn’t how I would have gone about teaching someone, but if the end result is the same then who am I to say that her technique isn’t ‘right’.

I think in this life if more people would realize that there are a lot of things out there where there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ …. there’s just ‘different’. Then everyone would get along a lot better.

Hot, Hot, HOT!

Got an early start to the day this morning. I heard it's supposed to be over 105 heat index this afternoon with livestock warnings so I figured I'd better get my outside work done early. I started at 6am in the barn this morning. It was GORGEOUS out there. Nice breeze blowing through the barn. I just finished up at 10 ..... yup, it's getting hot out there. Good thing I got the hard stuff done early. :o)

I've got Tina and her daughter, Riviera, coming over this afternoon to talk about the Pony Party they've booked in July. This will be our first one here on the farm. I'm really excited! I'm trying to figure out how to seat 30 people out there. Thinking about hay bales with 2 x 10's on top making long benches ..... kinda like we did for seating during the Wild Wild West show when we had so many parties going on for that. We needed efficient seating that could be broken down and moved quickly and easily from one location to another. The bales and boards worked well.

...still can't catch my new pony. She still hates me. She is getting a little more curious, though. She's wondering how come everyone else comes up to me to get treats. Today at least she started coming closer to me. When she started coming to me, I turned around and walked away. We'll see what happens this afternoon when I try again.

Ok .... not much more to report. Things are going ok so far. I'm trying to get some boarders and some lessons set up to get a little more cash flowing through here. I think I'll spend the hot afternoon inside until Tina and Riviera get here and work on marketing, making up some fliers, and just general networking. I forgot how long it takes to get the word out online going through all the websites to network. I used to do that when we were breeding to get Shahn's name out there and when I was running the show and the haunted barn. I remember sitting here at this computer for HOURS sending out mass emails and linking to people's sites and putting free ads up EVERYWHERE and not even realize how long I'd been working until my leg went numb. :o) I always said that was half the battle ..... getting people to know about you. Marketing and promo is the hardest part of a business .... the trick is to get people to know who you are, where you are, and what you're doing. You'll be successful if you can master that part. If not, you can be the best at what you do but if nobody knows you're there ..... you're sunk.

Ok friends .... I'm off. Lots to do today and the day is burning away. I'm never going to be rich and famous sitting here blogging ..... :o)