Oh Hey I'm Movin' On Up....

I interviewed for a new position and found out Wednesday that I got it! It will be a raise for me and hopefully the new office will have fewer guv'ment oddities. I work for the guv'ment so I guess I am an odd one too...however, I hope the new people I work with are more in line with my particular quirks if you will.

Guv'ment... don't get me started.

I never once woke up as a child thinking: when I grow up I want to work for the government! However, here I am and I'm trying to make the best of it...tho' to me it is VERY confusing and VERY different compared to private sector. The stories I could tell. You would think I'm making them up, seriously, you would. I'm learning that if I keep my mouth shut, smile, nod and remain "pleasant" - I get along pretty well. It pays the bills and I gotta be somewhere 8 hrs a day.

Tuesday I left work early (a guv'ment job perk) to ride in a clinic given by Jennifer Baumert. I just love her and love riding with her! Here is a link to an article she wrote when she was in Germany training with Conrad Schumacher: http://equisearch.com/horses_riding_training/english/dressage/eqconrad1914/

My goal was to ride outdoors in the beautiful weather. All was fine until my mare Sera noticed...LLAMAS! The place next to the farm hosting the clinic has 15-20 llamas. In the summer, the llamas go unseen due to the trees but with winter's bare branched trees... well let's just say Sera was having a major cow because the llamas were blowing her mind.

Jennifer said we could move to the indoor arena if we wanted but Sera has to learn to "get over it" and I need to learn to deal with her when she is flipping out. We stayed outside and dealt with the horrifying horse eating creatures. By the end of the lesson, Sera was accepting and relaxed. My lessons with Jennifer are always very fun and so informative!

Toward the end - Sera was stretching down into the bridle and relaxing.

I'm giving back all the high tech earpieces and transmitter to Jennifer. The llamas are all behind those trees...you can't see them but Sera sure could! She's standing still in this picture which was not possible at the beginning of the lesson - there was much head shaking, cow hopping and bucking. Poor thing. Doesn't she know llamas are vegetarian??

Once I got home and put Sera back into her pen, I had to milk goats and help Furry Husband feed babies. We are getting 16lbs of milk at each milking now with three does - that is over 30lbs of milk in a day! Yeeks! Furry Husband is still very leery of Chocolat's small teats tho' I can milk her without too much trouble and I have large man hands. Yes, I was man hands in Seinfeld...oh, you have something on your cheek....

Some co-workers from a program I worked in a long time ago were in town. They were the ones that initially started me thinking about dairy goats and helped me with my initial research. I picked them up at their hotel and we all drove up to Lyons, CO to see SouthFork Dairy Goats. SouthFork has wonderful Lamancha dairy goats and they just won the National Show in 2007. An extremely prestigious win. Check them out here: http://www.southforklamanchas.com/

First place dairy herd at the 2007 Dairy Goat National Show. Left to right: Cierra, Cate, Charity, Cayenne

We toured the farm and talked goats. We went inside to have dinner and talked goats. We looked at goat pictures, talked about goat shows, discussed other people in the goat industry that everyone knew... it was a full on goat evening.

My friends had early flights in the morning so we left at a decent hour and headed back to the hotel. What a fun, animal packed day! From la-ti-da Dressage clinic to a very well known and respected Lamancha goat farm.

Makes me giggle - the Dressage people would probably be a bit down in the mouth about goats and at the same time the goat people would be a bit down in the mouth about Dressage people... see how much you can learn, enjoy and the fun people you can meet from all different walks of life when you keep your mouth shut, smile and nod?

Whattya know. Maybe the ol' guv'ment ain't teachin' me such bad things after all!

Goin' to a Schoolin' Show

I woke up at 4:30 AM on Saturday. NO ONE should wake up that early on a weekend! I waited in bed until 5:30 before crawling out and quietly closing the bedroom door for my poor Furry Husband who was mumbling – “Wha? Where are you going?”

There was too much to do to lay in bed! New babies to attend to, the runt to check on, Sonata, the new mama to look after, a horse show that I hadn’t cleaned my tack for and my mare, Sera, still needed the rest of her mane pulled! Besides, I stopped Friday on my way home to get a truck load of sand for our old horse, Brandon. He has Cushing’s Disease, high ringbone and low ringbone and the sand will give him a soft place to stand and lie down when his joints and feet hurt. The horses have been pulled in from the pasture and are locked in their pens so the grass in the pasture can grow. Their pens are hard packed clay soil and it’s probably a lot like standing all day on a hard, tile floor.

Anyway, I can’t hook up our goose-neck trailer to the truck when there is a load of sand in the bed. We need to unload it.

Also, it’s a nice day and we can’t keep the goat kids in their stock tanks forever, they need to build their strength by moving around, running and playing. Legal Mumbo Jumbo aka Mario, our buck, is currently living in the baby pen because he hurt himself. He has small horn scurs – little partial horns that returned after he was disbudded as a kid (more on that later).

This picture is from Fiasco farm and it shows a horn scur - a partial horn growth

Well the little fella hooked his scur on a fence post and pulled back – POP! Ripped the scur ¾ of the way off and it’s being held on be the skin in front. Now it stands upright vs. laying flat against his head and it is very painful! He is (or was) covered in blood. Horns have a blood supply so if damage occurs, it’s usually extremely bloody tho’ not necessarily serious. Think about how if you get a cut on your scalp – lots of blood but usually not life threatening.

Well Mario is used to sticking his head through the fence to visit with the ladies as well as eating from his hanging feeder. Now that his scur is partially ripped and is so painful, he might stick his head through the fence and not be able to pull it back out because it hurts too much. I don’t want him stuck in the fence, afraid to pull his head back through, stressed, with no food or water so we moved him to the baby pen where the fence squares are too small for any goat to fit their head or body through. I called our goat vet and she thinks the horn will break off on it’s own vs. her coming out to remove the rest of it.

We have this other pen – a chain link dog kennel that we used for our chickens. Since we don’t have chickens any more, we could put the kids in there but it needs to be cleared out a little first. AND I forgot that I need to clean my trainer’s horse barn before the day is over!

Do you see what I mean? I just could NOT linger in bed past 5:30 AM!

Furry Husband couldn’t sleep with me scurrying around the house so he got up shortly after I did and we started in on our To Do List. We actually got most everything taken care of in time for me to load Sera in the trailer and head down the road.

Babies playing in their new pen - they love climbing on anything and everything which is why we have a cinder block platform for them to tackle.

GULP! I forgot that I haven’t been further than a couple miles for a year and now I’m on the INTERSTATE with a truck and trailer ---- ALONE! I stayed in the right hand lane and arrived at Bey Breeze Farm without incident. Both Sera and I were completely relieved. I unloaded her, groomed her, finished pulling her mane, tacked her up, changed into my show clothes and had 30 minutes to warm her up before my first ride.

Many of Rex’s students and fellow barn cleaners were down at the warm-up and show rings so it was a very relaxing and fun time! The weather was nice – 50’s with sunshine. You couldn’t have asked for a better day! Sera seemed relaxed and comfortable in her warm-up and she continued to be confident and relaxed in her Dressage tests. We really enjoyed ourselves and I know we did well. We weren’t perfect – who is? However, we got out, did our best and were both very happy. Furry Husband even stopped by to catch my first ride. He had to get to a wine tasting in Berthoud so he couldn’t stay for the second ride. It was a great surprise to see my Schweetie Pateetie standing on the sidelines cheering me one. I am one lucky girl!

We won both classes with a 68% for First Level Test 1 and a 69% for First Level Test 3. NICE Dressage scores. I brought home two blue ribbons and two coffee mugs filled with chocolates! Our year off to train and ride in clinics for improvement really paid off. The work wasn’t a struggle and we were both confident in our effort. It was a wonderful day and I have a wonderful mare. I love my beautiful mare, Sera!

Sera and I headed home. I turned her out and began evening chores. Furry Husband got home soon after and we were both starving! We made plans to run into town for a hamburger at Beauregards in Wellington when I remembered I still had stalls to clean for Rexanne! My WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL Furry Husband said he’d help me knock it out after dinner. We were both home and in bed by 10:30. What a busy but fun day - I slept like a rock!