Thursday, April 30, 2009

A Girl and her Pony



What a great day!! After Morgan got out of school I took her down to the stables. She finished her homework on the way (Yea!) and then we spent some time with Toby.

Morgan really enjoyed herself and is really excited to come play with the horses again. I am so happy! My daughter finally wants to hang out at the barn with me!

Toby was a total gentleman and Morgan groomed him including picking his feet. She was a little nervous, remembering how he was in his younger days, but he was very good and she settled in very quickly.

After the grooming we hitched him up and took him down the road. He is still very out of shape and acclimatizing but he managed to work for almost an hour. Morgan even drove him a little. She has started working on turns and learning that you have to let go of the horse's mouth when they are being good. She did so well! She now wants to start riding some and so I need to get the pony saddle out here. I am not convinced that Toby will be great at it but with me helping I think he might finally get broke to ride. He has been a little inconsistent in the past. Makes my miss little Katie Selman more than ever! She'd have him broke in no time!

I made a video of our exploits and I am including it. As usual, those who get email updates will have to actually come to the site to view the video. http://eighthparakeet.blogspot.com

Hope you all are having as wonderful a Spring as we are!

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Springing



Toby is in Colorado! He arrived just in time for a heavy spring snow. He was a little shocked when he got here but a warm blanket and some big-boned chicks to hang out with and he settled right in. Lol! As you can see his cart arrived with him and I hitched him up and took him down the road with no issues. He acted like he had never had any time off! He and Annie remembered each other and had a wild time running around the round pen. He has managed to escape from him pen once and is digging a hole in one corner of his pen. Lucky thing Marie thinks he's cute!
In other news Bailey got clipped, Marie picked up a beautiful Black Shire mare named Willow, Morgan is planning her Birthday. There is a Tinkerbell theme and a Pinata involved. =) Cody and Morgan went wild this week and cleaned the house and got the laundry done. I am thrilled! We finally got to work this weekend for the first time in three weeks, although today we got rained out halfway through.
I am doing well in school, having passed my first two Parasitology tests quite well. The A & P Cranial Nerves test went well also. I got 140 out of 150 points on my Sterile Tech Instrument's test and am managing to gown myself without too much contamination. I have plans of taking Morgan out to ride with me and Toby tomorrow or Tuesday and so we might have more pictures soon.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Pixelated


We adopted a new kitty! Loosing Critter was hard but as he was very old and was living on borrowed time we had been expecting him to pass. We knew we would get a new kitty after he had gone. The fist week or so we weren't in any hurry but we decided to start looking last week.


I found a kitty online that needed a new home. A nice lady had adopted her from an abandonment situation early in the year and took care of her and her kittens. She had "Mama" fixed, vetted, micro chipped, and tested for FeLV and FIV. Luckily she tested negative for both. She found homes for the kittens and then planned on keeping "Mama". Unfortunately she had two other cats and "Mama" was traumatized and terrified by them. She did get along with the lady's dogs and grandchildren so she put up an add on MySpace to re-home the pretty girl. I found the ad and after talking with her about our family and home we got lucky enough to be given this sweet and pretty girl.


We have decided that "Pixel" is a better name for her. We haven't seen much of her since her arrival. She was pretty freaked out by the car ride here and so far she has made appearances only when wet food is presented and even then we only glimpse flashes of tail. We know about the "traumatized, hiding kitty" deal though and several times a day we will head down to the basement (her "kennel") to call for her and try to make friends. The lady who gave her to us said she was very friendly and playful so we know she will come out of her shell in a week or two.


She has the spare bed, the space heater, and about 400 sq feet of private quarters to settle into. We are excited to meet her and we hope she will come around sooner than later. She was very sweet and reminded me of my darling Julia when we met her before the disappearance. Soon we will have more details to post.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Bail Out

New Bailey video!!! Katey rode him last week and brought her fancy camera. It took me a while to fit the editing into the studying schedule but tonight I finally felt caught up enough to finish. Hope you all enjoy Bailey as much as Katey and I are!

http://eighthparakeet.blogspot.com

Parking

I finally remembered to bring my camera on one of our "Dog Park" outings. As you see, Cody managed to find some scrap Berber carpet and rigged up the dogs some five star accommodations in the back of the truck.

The trip to the park is usually noisy. Straton knows the way and starts barking in excitement as soon as we pull out onto the main drag. Once we park he is whining and Brigs is bouncing off the windows.

The walk to the park is about 200' and is usually a little high energy. They know they have to behave but it is SOOO hard!

The park has double gates where we make them sit and get unleashed. Then the gates open and they run for the next 1/2 hour straight! Cody and Straton play Frisbee and tackle the agility obstacles. The "A" frame is Straton's favorite.


The park is huge and there are always tons of dogs to play with.


The ride home includes Brigs jumping into the backseat of the cab and then "Flying" out the window. We have found he will do this up to 50 mph and in temps as low as 30 degrees. Beyond those parameters he is not so keen on the flying, though he will keep "testing" to see if the conditions have improved.

Enjoy the pics!



Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Editor

More videos folks! I've been trying to get the videos of Morgan sledding done for the past two weeks and just haven't. Well today I became slightly injured due to being severely out of shape and riding a Clydesdale so to make me feel better I decided to do some video editing. There is one of me and Bailey and one of Morgan and our two days of sledding after the big snow two weeks ago.

All is going pretty well over here. Money is working itself out and Toby will be on his way out here next Tuesday. Cody is working quite a bit and the only thing left is poor Annie who hasn't been ridden in about a month. After I recover some I will get on that. Show season is starting soon and Katey and I are really wanting to get to some of those. Katey (my riding buddy from work) is really jazzed to barrel race Pippen, the 16hh Suffok Punch gelding. I will DEFINITELY post videos of that!


Here's the link to this blog so you can view the videos. http://eighthparakeet.blogspot.com

Saturday, April 4, 2009

RIP Critter


I came home from work this evening (morning) and Critter was dying. He has come down with a bad upper respiratory infection over the last three days and he crashed tonight. Having FIV and being over 14 years old we had hoped he would go in his sleep. There was no hope of him recovering. No medicine in the world can make immune systems reappear.
Cody came home shortly after me and we both agreed that he was suffering so we loaded him up with his sleepy blanket and took him over to Alameda East. They are the closest 24 hour facility. Neither of us have cried yet but we did stop for comfort food. I got a cheeseburger and a Coke and Cody got two chocolate sundaes. I'm sure the tears are coming. We have both been really close several times.

We are glad he didn't suffer long. He went quickly and we couldn't have expected anything less than him fighting death the end. No going quietly in his sleep for that ol' tough cat. The dogs were terrified right to the end and even last night he was torturing the mice. He was Cody's sleeping buddy for 14 years. We are going to miss him considerably.