Hot, Hot, Hot!!!

Phewwwww.....it has been scorching here the last few weeks!!! Before you all roll your eyes and call me a wimp, just know that I do like the heat, but I definitely do not like the humidity that comes along with it over here.

(The top number on our temperature thingy is the temp outside, and the second number is the temp in the house)

Eastern WA is known to have high summer temps, but Western WA usually doesn't. Well, we consider 80-85 degrees high, but when you live in the land of green-fir trees, ferns, and various "wet" plants-that is high.

If it weren't so damn humid, I might be able to enjoy it a little bit more...oh, and it would be nice if it cooled off at night too.
(Now that everything is so dry, our fire danger is considered to be as high as Eastern WA's)Because it usually never gets over 85 degrees, and because it usually cools down to 50-60 degrees at night, most homes in Western WA don't have air conditioning either. This past week, the average nightly temperature has been 78-82 degrees, and that makes it really difficult to get a good nights sleep-that damn humidity doesn't help either!

Thankfully, we have a small unit that cools our bedroom off, so we have pulled the kidlets

mattresses into our room, and we all sleep together.

Needless to say, we have spent many hours in our little pool, but when the sun is beating down at you -and it is 108 degrees-even the pool feels hot. The plus side of all this sunshine, and hours spent in the pool???? We are all turning a nice brown color, and I may not need to have my hair foiled, as it is lightening up in the sun.

Stay cool, and have fun!!!

PS-For those of you who read my last post, please read Chelsi's great comeback!!!!! I guess I am not crazy after all...lol!!!

Vampires, Werewolves, and Humans-Or Not????

So I think that I may have a problem.....

You know how I read the whole Twilight series during the months of December and January (last year)??? Well I am seriously considering re-reading the first two books; especially New Moon because I rushed through it. All I could think about was getting Bella and Edward back together again, and I don't know if I really read it thoroughly....

Or is that just my addiction talking??? LOL!!!

I am good with the last two books-they are together, what did you expect?-but I am thinking that I need me some New Moon. Hmmmmmmmm.........

(And it's okay if you want to tell me to "step away from the Twilight books." LOL!!!)

So...am I crazy????

A Good Day....

Amber is out of town on vacation, and the kidlets and I have been feeding and taking care of all of her critters lately. Yesterday was only about 80 degrees-which is actually cool right now!-and the kidlets wanted to ride, so we went up early. It was about 3:00, so we gave the panonies a small snack first. I usually let them graze out in the yard, but the grass is all dried up. Waska-above-still has his front boots on, and he is still tender, but he moved around pretty good. We didn't get him out, but I did give him a good grooming while he was snacking, and boy was he itchy. Katie decided that she wanted to pick manure, and who was I to complain???

She's a girl after my own heart, as I used to religiously pick manure out of our horses paddocks and pastures twice a day when I was growing up. It just looks and smells better, and besides...who wants to stand around in their own poo??? LOL!!!Meanwhile...Eric had finished brushing Bo, and wanted to ride, so I left Katie in the paddock with Waska and Sienna. (There he goes! Choking up on that lead rope again!!! LOL!!) Katie was a bit nervous to be in the paddock without me, but I told her that I would be right on the other side of the fence, and I also figured that it was a good time for her to get a little bit of confidence.

She gave Waska one last kiss, and grabbed her wheelbarrow and her manure fork. I told her to keep the wheelbarrow near her, just in case she needed it for security. She is a lot smaller than Waska, and I reminded her that even though Waska is was bigger than her-Sienna is obviously not a threatening presence...lol!!!-she is/was the boss of the paddock, not Waska.

I also told her to whack, shove, or push Waska if he got in her space and tried to be bossy. Gotta raise her up right, right???? LOL!!!And sure enough, the minute I stepped out, Waska walked over to Katie. You can see that she was unsure about what to do, and I told her to relax and pet him.

I also reminded her that the manure fork could be used as an extension of her arm-if need be-and she finally relaxed and pet him. He looks really threatening, doesn't he??? LOL!!!!Eric rode Bo around for awhile, but he was kind of being a turkey, so I had to get on him. I felt like a kidlet myself, as I cantered and ran around in a bareback pad...teeheehee!! Eric took some pictures of me, but I will not show them to you!!!!
After we were done riding, Katie, who was in a horse kissing mood, came up and gave Bo a big kiss, and a barbecue potato chip.

We then shared some of the huckleberries that we found with the panonies....
...watered Amber's plants....
...and played with frogs. :)

It was a good afternoon!

Another Little Secret of Mine.....

Some of you know-and some of you don't know-that I used to work for a paint horse farm back in the late 80's and early 90's. Gee whiz, that dates me...lol!!!! They primarily bred halter horses, and I was able to see a lot of nice looking stock back in the day-now I sound even older...teeheehee!!!

(Horses like Barlink Macho Man, Jetalito, Scribbles, Lucky Straw, Mr. Norfleet, and Cajun Joe Jet)

I would accompany them to several big shows in WA and OR, and besides helping prepare the stallions and mares for their classes, I would also ring steward for the judges. I always said I was going to get my judges card...maybe one day....

Now I could get into quite the conversation about APHA politics-from back in those days-and about how the paint horse market, like almost any breed market,became flooded with over breeding, unsightly horses, and genetic problems, but I won't.

What I wanted to do was show what I consider to be some nice looking paint horses, but be forewarned, not all of them would hold up under hard riding-again, I won't discuss that here, but just know that I know that the horses may contribute to some of the ongoing soundness issues that plague QH's and Paints alike.

(The handsome black and white stallion in the two pictures above can be found here)

So remember, I am not looking at breeding so much as I am looking at coloring. Hey...isn't that what got a lot of breeders in trouble???? LOL!!!!

(You can find this boy here, but again, don't look at his breeding...teeheehee)

At least this stallion can be ridden....

Here's a handsome gelding that moves well in the arena....Again...I am looking at coloring and markings. Just a reminder, as this mare's conformation needs help, but I like her color pattern.I also happen to really be partial to roan horses...blue, bay, or red, but I can't seem to find any that really jump out and grab me. Wait! Here's one.

And another....

Find this blue roan stallion here......And here is a miscellaneous bay roan that I found on the Internet.Okay, it's out. I like paints and roany QH's too...lol!!!!! Who doesn't like a little color every now and then, right????

Sunrise....

Alright, now where did I leave off last time??? Oh yeah...Sunrise.

So after we got back from our hike, we decided to head up to an area known as Sunrise, which was about another 20 minutes up the road. The views of the mountain and its alpine meadows were fabulous up there, but unfortunately, it was so bright that a lot of my pictures didn't turn out-too much glare off of the mountain snow.

You can read about Sunrise by clicking on the link above, but just so you know, it has an elevation of 6400 feet-the mountain is 14,410 feet high.

Do you see the foothill near the bottom left of the above picture? Do you also see the milky colored ice/glacier that looks like it is running into it? That is Emmon's Glacier, and it is also where we were on our hike. Pretty cool, huh?

When you are up that high, you can also see Mt. Adams to the south (below) and I think that you are also able to see Mt. Saint Helens, but I am not sure, as we couldn't see it. This is one of the alpine lakes up there, and the color is just breathtaking. There is a three mile hike that takes you down to it, but Kevin gave me a look when I mentioned it...lol!!!!

And here is one of the alpine meadows. Do you see all of the blue? Those are flowers, and intermingled in all of them are bright orange, white, and red ones too.

What do we have here??? Some rare type of mountain momma and her son?? Teeheehee!!!!

Katie was pouting, because she cut her foot, and wouldn't get in the picture. Silly girl! To give you an idea of how bright it was, the mountain is directly behind me and Eric, but all you see is brightnessWell, that's it for now folks. Our next trip is most likely going to be here, because it is only about 35-40 minutes from our house. Stay tuned for more exciting adventures...lol!!!!

PS-No luck on any of the lease horses so far, but Amber says that Waska is improving daily. They had her cut a spot out of the pad in his boot-to keep constant pressure off of the supposed bruise-and he can actually walk normally now.

Amber and her hubby are leaving on vacation, and the kidlets and I will be taking care of the panonies, so I will check him out on Friday.

A Nice Leisurely Hike...Or Not!

Last Saturday, I convinced Kevin to go on a hike with us up in Mt. Rainier National Park. You know-I played the poor helpless female who needed a big, strong man to protect her and her kidlets from the hidden dangers that lurk in the woods...lol!!!

Honestly though, I needed another adult to go with us, as you cannot take dogs on any of the trails up there. It was decided that we would hike the Glacier Basin Trail, and boy did we have a great time.

The hike was supposed to be about seven miles round trip, but flooding from two years ago (see above link) added quite a bit of extra terrain/mileage to cover. A large part of the main trail was washed out, and we spent a good amount of our hike traversing through river rocks, log jams, and small streams. It was fun though...See???If you look near Katie in the picture below, you can see the flags that the ranger's have placed along the detour to keep us crazy hikers on the right rocks...er...path. This was the last rock/mudslide that we had to cross, and from it, we entered bear country. We even saw quite a few piles of bear poo.

See Kevin??? I told you we needed you...lol!!!

During the hike, there are several spots where Mt. Rainier peaks out at you in all of its glory. It was truly breathtaking, and the pictures do not really show you just how close we were to it.In person, it looked like it was close enough to reach out and touch...Ever seen nature's air conditioner??? It was really warm that day-about 78 in the park and 95 back at home-but when you got within 10 feet of this little waterfall, the air temperature dropped by like 10-15 degrees. Nice!!!! Needless to say, we spent some time-both ways-cooling off here.After we had gone about 3.5 miles-or more-we asked people who were coming back down how much longer we had until we hit the glacier. Unfortunately, they all said at least another two miles, and we had to turn around (Kevin has not exercised in years and he was about ready to die at this point. I am really proud that he bit the bullet and made it as far as he did though).They are making a new trail that is about 40-50 feet above the old one, and once it is done-and the hike is once again seven miles long-we will do it again.

One more thing....This trail is one of the gateways to climb the mountain, and on our way up-and down-we passed several climbers who were returning from the summit. How cool is that??? They were kind of smelly though...lol!!!

We made it back to our truck, and headed up the road to an area known as Sunrise, but I will write about that in another post. Have a great day you guys!

The Beach and Horse Update

Hello! I hope that everyone is enjoying their summer so far...I know that I am!!!! We've all been pretty busy, and have been taking advantage of the wonderful weather that we have been having lately.

It has been in the mid/upper 90's-which is unusual-so we have been heading out in search of cooler areas. The other day, we all went to one of our favorite beaches on the sound, but were surprised to find that the tides were really high-even low tide.

Usually there is a huge beach to play on and several rocks and/or tidal pools to search for sea creatures in, but not that day. Oh well...the upside was that the water was only up to our waists about 400+ feet off the shore, and their appeared to be no riptide to sweep unsuspecting kidlets off of their feet.

(Below is a picture of Amber's little Chihuahua as he swam towards me)
The water was filled with seaweed-I love to eat seaweed, but not when it comes from this water!-and lots of other debris towards the shore. It's really quite sad when you think about how polluted the sound has become. A place that was once sacred and pristine is now filthy and uncared for.There were also several jellyfish-there always are-and below is a small one that was floating by my leg...
I was really hoping to take some nice pictures of the area that we were in, but it is heavily populated, and there really wasn't much to look at. Last year though, we saw a wayward humpback whale out near where this tugboat was, and that was a really neat experience.And what would a trip to the beach be without burying the kidlets in the sand???LOL!!!
On the horse front.....Waska appears to have bruised his coffin bone, and may be out of commission for one to two months. He has foundered before, so it was not a difficult thing for him to do.....

This means that unless I can find another horse to ride-or unless he gets better quickly-I do not have a horse to ride, as Amber will ride Bo instead of me. The farrier feels really bad about the whole thing, and does have a couple of clients who want to lease their horses out for the summer.
One is a $100,000 Warmblood that has a tendency to rear up and flip over when he is stressed out-no thanks!!!!-and the other horse is an Arab gelding that is used for endurance and trail riding. His owner broke her wrist and cannot ride him, and she is hoping to find someone to come out and ride him for her.

She lives about 35-40 minutes away, but the farrier thinks that she may let him come to Amber's house. I am just waiting for him to get back to me with the number, so I can call and see if it is something that she would be up for; otherwise it may be a long summer filled with no riding for me. :(

Oh well..things always happen for a reason, and have a way of working themselves out, right? Still...

Crabby!

Since I have not been able to ride at all during the last three weeks-and yes, it is making me extremely crabby!-I have been lusting after some fine horseflesh on the Internet. Plus there are some of you who are horse shopping, and hey, who doesn't like looking every now and then, right Chelsi and Breathe??? LOL!!!

I have found some really nice horses too-well that fit my needs anyway. Want to see???

This nice gelding (below) comes from Montana, but I am not sure how much training he has had; although Waska didn't really have any, and he caught on just fine....Then there is this handsome fella ,who comes from Northern CA. Hey, that's not that far away, right???? LOL!!! And how about this handsome Morab gelding? He's definitely a good mix of Arab and Morgan blood, and appears to have nice bone/size too.
And last but not least, we have this big boy-and he is in WA too! I don't know if I would pay $9000 for a Mustang though...Now for kid horses-notice how they are not Arabs...teeheehee!!!

This gelding looks like he would be a great all-around horse for the kidlets, and he is drop dead gorgeous to boot. (To see more pics and a video of him, check out his ad) Mom, doesn't he kind of remind you of a chunky Jewel? This gelding has that "I'm cute-pinch my cheeks" look. Sorry for the small picture of him-his ad is expiring.
Okay, so this one is 1/2 Arab, but just look at how cute he is! And the nice thing about him, is he is big enough that I could get on and remind him of his manners if he ever decided to take advantage of the kidlets.Well, there you have it. Hopefully Waska will be ready for riding by next week, and I can quit pining away on the Internet. I would go out and ride Bo by myself, but because the kidlets are out of school, it poses a huge babysitting issue for me. Ahhh well...it will only get easier as they get older, right?

Of course when they are older, I might not want to leave them alone...lol!!!