WOO HOOO...A STAR I ARE

I'm pretty excited today.  Got my first story published on the Internet in Horseback Magazine.  It's one of the first ones I wrote on my blog, but it is also one of the ones that made me laugh the most.  I have been asked to submit a story monthly!  Hmmm....this blog thing might turn into something.....I can see it now....the Oprah book club list....world wide fame and fortune......

Whew, for a second there my ego got out!   For the time being, the blog continues.  Fame and fortune will have to wait!

Check out the link, comment on the story!

When Age and Brains Come Together

As I have mentioned in the past, I really don’t think too much of the way I used to break horses.  And I say break because that is what I was doing to them.  There was no thought to an easier method, just get on and git-r-done!

Shady was a mare I rode for my parents when she was a 3 year old.  She ended up not being a very good momma (Annie and the Ego).  She was mistrustful and fearful and I missed all the signs, heck I wasn’t even looking for them.

At the time I was still fairly young and rubbery, so I did not spend much time doing ground work.  I used to laugh at my Dad for spending time walking around on the ground when he could be in the saddle.  I used to tell him that “anything he was doing on the ground, I could do in the saddle!”   Oh, how that statement came back to bite me…

MD Anderson: Denial No More

To be honest, I have mourned the fact that my Queen has cancer.  I wanted to shout at the world and say why us!   Why is this happening! 

Now, I’m not stupid (contrary to what some might believe)…I know she is not the only out there going through cancer.  Heck, she is not even the only one that I know going through cancer.  Our friend Cynthia has been dealing with some form or cancer for almost 20 years now, so I know we are not the only ones dealing with it.  With the other people, though, I have been able to disconnect myself from what they are going through.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Cynthia like a sister….but I am not married to her.  This one hit close to home, my mind immediately jumped to the worst case scenario.  So I was an emotional wreck thinking about what my bride would have to go through.  I mentioned previously (A Certain Amount of Denial) that I couldn’t talk about it without choking up.  Well this had been going on since January 3^rd and only in the last week have I had any peace about it.

Annie and the Ego

In 2004 or 2005 we bred a Skipastar / Boston Mac mare that my parents had, to a paint stallion named Hot Majestic Man.  We got a really nice baby, but therein lay the story.

I went down to the barn, one early morning, in May of 2005 to check on Shady (the mare in question).  She was due and Felicia had me on mare watch (Hmmm…seems like this was a little one sided).  As I headed down in the dark, I could hear the mare heading to the barn and I could also hear little nickers.  So I called Felicia and had her and the girls come down to the barn to see the new baby.  The girls were so excited; this was the first baby that was “theirs”!

The Ballad of a Week of Beans

When I was growing up in Higbee, Colorado: both Mom and Dad worked.  Not only did they work, but there was about an hour drive when they got off, so sometimes it was six or seven o’clock when they got home at night.  During this time, one of us kids’ chores was to cook supper (don’t tell my wife, I have convinced her that I cannot cook!).  Usually the extent of our cooking was pork chops or sloppy joe’s and cakes.  The cakes were my thing, because I do like cake!  The one time we went beyond our expertise, we had to have directions.

Dad relayed Mom’s instructions, which was to cook beans and cornbread. (Duh how hard could this have been, it was beans and cornbread) This was supposed to be for a Monday night, so Dad helped us out on Sunday.  The cornbread we could cook on Monday after noon, so that was no problem (I bake cakes ya know).  We kids did not know how many beans to add, Mom’s instructions were to barely cover the bottom of the pan.  Of course, with Dad helping we didn’t pay any attention to those instructions! 

MD Anderson: A Certain Amount of Denial

Whenever I am told something I don’t like, there is a certain amount of denial involved for me.  Whether it is denial of the other person’s intelligence or a fuzzy denial of the problem, I get them both.  The question usually is:  how long before truth sets in?

January 3^rd was a really tough day for us.  We got some news that was hard to deal with.  We talked about it most of the day.  We discussed what we thought might happen and how the insurance would be handled.  I think Felicia and I were both in denial about the seriousness of it.