Everything Else..

Took Cooper to another practice this past weekend. Didnt expect much from him. Before it was his turn to go, we took a dead duck and played around with it, asking Cooper to pick it up and hold it in his mouth.. he didnt have much interest in the duck nor in carrying it around, so when Derek went to the line to run Cooper in the practice, we had zero expectations that he would bring back the duck. In the past practices, he would run to the duck, sniff it and then keep going!
As Cooper ran out to find the duck that was thrown for his practice, he got a little lost and couldnt find it so after a minute or so, he stopped, sat down and looked at Derek for direction! We both at this point had a little pitter-patter in our hearts because he looked so damn cute and he was doing what he is supposed to do! Derek rose his hand up and said "Back!" and sure enough Cooper ran back in the direction he was supposed to, found the duck, PICKED UP the duck and ran back to Derek with it! OMG we were just amazed that he did it.. All the hard work we had put in after his training is paying off and we see for the first time real possibility that this sport could be one we stay involved in.

The 2nd duck was thrown for Cooper and again, he ran out to it, found it and brought it back to Derek. We could not have been happier!!! There have been so many issues and problems we've had to work around and through after Cooper came back from training so it was a huge relief to see this happen. The second practice run I actually got on video, bummer I didnt get the first one as it was a much better run, but he still did great!!

In the video posted, he dropped the first bird on the way back and didnt want to pick it up, it had been a live shot bird within the past 30 minutes vs the other ducks were long dead and frozen. He apparently wasnt too sure about the fresher bird, but he did bring it back eventually!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeIWaSyO6fw

We also went to a DSHS adoption class last week.. learned a lot and are moving forward with getting approved through the state to foster. In order to adopt, you have to become approved to foster, meaning we will be taking a 27hr course in July and then within the next few months, we plan to submit for our homestudy. Once both of those are completed, we will either be approved or not approved and once approved we can start looking for a child. :)

This past weekend was our annual horse club Dutch Oven Day! Derek had been talkin about Seafood Gumbo for over a month, so that was what he made and it was delicious. A little spicy, but very good flavor and his first attempt at gumbo. Someone took this cute picture of us standing over our dish. Dutch Oven day is always one of my favorite club events, lots of good food you wouldnt expect to be cooked outdoors! Next week is our last week of bowling for this league.. we will be glad when that is over.. we love bowling, but it is an 8mo league and we kinda feel that is just too long! :) We might look into another league maybe at different lanes.. will suck to not bowl with Jen/John, but we also want to be on a smaller team. We have 8 people on our team and only 5 can bowl each week so there is too much rotating and not enough bowling! :)

Time to Ride..

I've been out and on my horse Willie a few times now, he is doing good. The more I ride him, the less I question my decision on buying him. Slowly but surely he's comin around! He still has issues and gets spanked, but nothing I am too concerned about anymore. Yesterday we got out for my first trail ride on him, he was very relaxed and easy going, carried his head level and seemed to pay attention to what he was walking over, through and around. A little ouchy on the rocky areas even with shoes on, one little spook but otherwise a nice hour ride. I think in the next 30 days he really is going to be an old pro and just about what I had hoped he would be.

Here are a few pics of him when Shannon took him out on his first ever trail ride. He was ponied at first, then ridden by her son Klay for the second half of the ride. I am told that he is more relaxed on the trail than in the arena, a good sign!

Shannon says he is always posing for the camera, the only f*ing vein horse she knows.. as she says it! lol

Derek & I also went out and watched some cow sorting down the road from Shannon's.. Definately something we plan to do with our horses!! Derek is excited and wants me to find a used rope so he can start playing around with that.

Just as I am thinking all these positive thoughts about my horse, I get a text that he kicked another horse.. He's not real keen on being around other horses, have had to get after him for threatening to charge another while under saddle.. He just likes getting his ass kicked I guess! :)

Looks like I'm spending the money...

Yep, Willie is gonna be in school for another month! I had hoped it wouldnt work out this way, but he needs more life lessons and in the long run, Shannon can get so much more done and quicker than I can. I am thinking in another week I will start going out and riding him as well while he is in training. He should be going out on his first trail ride this week, I'm anxious to hear how that goes.

I continue to second guess my decision to buy him, a little dissappointed I spent so much on him when he turned out to need so much more than I had hoped, but I still have a glimmer of hope left in me that it will work out in the end. And Shannon keeps reassuring me what a great horse he is and how nice he really is... Its just tough hearing and seeing the negative and not being able to see his progress like she does. I brought him home the other day for a couple hours so the horseshoers could put new shoes on him.. he was an ass!! He wouldnt stand still or hold his foot up, kept pulling it away. He got spanked a lot, but as he has proven so far, once he gets a serious spanking, he behaves much better! The shoers even noticed that... And I have to remind myself its been not even 3 weeks so far and much of his BS is nothing too serious. Patience is the key thing I think he needs to learn right now.

Oh and just for the record, I officially have changed the way I spell his name as of 5 minutes ago! I decided that Willie seems like a slightly cooler way to spell it.. lol

A couple weeks ago I borrowed my friend Molly's draft horse Dozer, we hauled him and Oakley out to Shannons and her son Klay took us on a trailride behind their house. We had a good time. Dozer has a lot of forward movement and I held him back most of the ride, to keep him off Oakley's heals.. I paid for that mistake that night as I woke up in the middle of the night hardly able to move my arms they hurt so badly! :)

We've been pretty busy on the weekends.. that same weekend we rode, the day before we did a work party up in Arlington, along with about 40+ other people. We helped build some gravel bridges. I always enjoy doing what I can with trail work. Although my back doesnt hold up so well, I do the best I can and always leave feeling really good about being so involved. Cant wait to get up and ride this new trail that we helped establish.

This past weekend was Derek's birthday weekend.. again a pretty busy one with amazing weather! :) I think Spring is here to stay... I had taken Friday and Monday off work, we had originally planned to go camping that weekend, but without my horse, opted not to go. Friday started off with us buying 2 new goats!!

Meet Splish & Splash
They are 1yr old Nigerian Dwarfs, just like our other kids. Its been about a week now and they are all getting along pretty well together, the new boys fit in well and add a little color to our herd. We've been wanting to get a couple more for some time and I found these guys about 20 minutes from our house on CL.

We had planned to ride again this past weekend, but it seems Oakley has injured himself, darnit! He either injured his hamstrings or his groin muscles.. not sure which, I just know the base of his butt cheeks is swollen and warm to touch so he gets massaged and hosed almost daily. I'm not spending the money for a vet, just gonna watch him and work it out on our own.. He most likely did it when turned out on pasture as he ran his little heart out!! My bad.. I dont think the recovery time will be too long and I think he will be okay with some light easy arena riding for now and work back up to trails.

We started the much dreaded garage project this past weekend as well. It was getting ridiculous, the path to walk through was getting smaller and smaller by the minute! Derek (with my assistance) built a really great shelf and then a fishing pole holder and a couple other small shelves. It is nowhere near done yet, still have organizing to do, but now we have some place to start. I cant wait to get it done! :)

This is the pole holder that Derek came up with
On Derek's birthday we got to go to the new Cabela's that was not open yet to the public! My brother knows an employee there so we got in on the family/friends night. I had no idea it was going to be that busy!! OMG it was ridiculous. We spent almost 3 hours in the store and not because there was so much to look at.. almost an hour of that was just waiting in line to check out, 45 minutes spent just trying to make your way through the crowd to get from one area to another and maybe 45 minutes actually looking at products! We bought a few things, Derek had some gift certificates to spend.. I think I'll wait til the novelty of it all dies down before I attempt to go back to that store!

And I have to throw in this picture of Cooper.. quite the character. When I go potty, I use the spare bathroom typcially and he always follows me in. And when he comes in, he always jumps in the bathtub and sometimes will lick the faucet or bite at it, trying to get water to come out, sometimes he will just sit and stare at the faucet. Well this day, he did a new thing and he just layed down in there.. He was content to just hang out in the tub while I was doing my business and I had to get a picture. :)

Another Embarassing Moment..

This past Saturday night was our Hunt Retrieval Club's banquet Potluck in Monroe... Derek and I are still pretty new so I still feel a bit uncomfortable at these events.. Everyone is very nice and social, but I tend to get a bit introverted.. Is that the right word? I dont insert myself into conversations well, so I stand back a bit..

Anyways, while we are eating dinner, about 12 people are sitting in a big circle and then about 8 of us are sitting around a table. I was sitting in a wood chair, not a great chair, but it felt sturdy. I tend to wiggle myself just a little when I first sit in chairs like this, get a good feel for leg wobbly-ness! This chair felt just fine. About 20 minutes or so into dinner, most of us have finished eating, we are just bs'ing.

Well I hear a loud CRACK! Oh SHIT.... yep, heard and felt the chair break and in slow motion form, I went from sitting to flat on my back with a crumpled chair under me! I was MORTIFIED!!! OMG, I cant believe the damn chair just snapped under me. Well I guess I can believe it, its not like I'm a spring chicken... I got up and the chair seat had just split right in half. I was sooooo embarassed, I'm sure I was bright red and of course everyone had quit talking and was staring at me... I will now be remembered not as Piper, not as Dereks' wife or as Coopers mom, but as the girl that broke the f*ing chair!!

Oh and I was just fine physically... Derek says "I heard the crack, why didnt you just get up real quick?" Yeah, cuz its real easy to get up when the chair has snapped and is dropped out from under you, yep real easy to jump straight up in the moment as your momentum is already falling.. LOL So much for staying in the background that night..

Willy is Home

Well not quite home, but he's in WA and I can go see him whenever I get the itchin to do so.

My friend Rachel took the trip with me down to OR, we left on Thursday around 10:30 and 8.5 hours later we were finally in Redmond. We had to take the long way down (avoiding all the mountain passes) as a storm had come in and it wasnt safe to attempt them. Rachel called me Thursday morning and told me she had a problem.. my heart sank as I thought she was bailing on me, but she started to say something like "well my dog Mojo..." I cut her off and told her to load up the damn dog and get her ass over to my house! LOL I already had known she is very attached to her spoiled pooch so we snuck him into our hotel room. We also snuck him into the restaurant for dinner because he was attempting to bark when we tried leaving him in the room alone.

Rachel was a GREAT choice to take to OR with me, she likes to talk and she kept me wide awake the entire drive down and back. It was an issue I was VERY afraid of, I get really drowsy on long car rides and struggle to stay awake, even when I am driving. But we just had such a great time all the way down there, laughed a lot.

I had told Rachel she was going to have to tolerate my snoring, she said it would be no problem. Well at 3:30am when I woke up, I look over and she's still wide awake!! Damn.... My snoring was out-of-control and the wind was gusting outside which was causing a loud whistle through the window and she couldnt find any cartoons to put her to sleep... I felt SO bad, she did finally fall asleep but only got maybe 2.5 hours. The drive home took 10 hours, we did go over Santium Pass, it was the only one that was bare/wet, the others had started to accumulate snow/ice. It was a REALLY crappy road.. the entire highway practically was rutted and it was either pouring or snowing so it was a long slow drive up and over. And then of course we hit Friday afternoon traffic up around Fort Lewis... I did get a bit drowsy by this time, although I got a lot more sleep than Rachel, 18 hours of driving was taking its toll.

We made it safe and sound to Sultan 8pm Friday evening. Willy was ready to get out. He loaded in the trailer just fine, but hauled Wild-Eyed the whole drive and he was nervous so I didnt interact with him much on the drive home. I knew he was in for a rude-awakening.. life was about to hit him over the head and his cushy spoiled life was officially over the minute he stepped in my trailer! :)

I just didnt realize just how spoiled he was and was a little suprised yesterday when I went out to see him, just how naughty he's been! His previous owners never ever ever pushed his buttons apparently. Unless they are very good liars, I didnt sense they feared Willy at all, but did feel they weren't the caliber of trainers they indicated they were. I could tell when I rode him that he hadnt been asked to do much except walk and trot circles in the arena. But he seemed willing to try.

Shannon has seen the worst of him come out in the past 5 days.. A little discouraging to hear these negative issues coming up about him, but she still feels he's going to be a solid trail horse for me... she just needs to get him over this hump. The horse has been babied and never asked to do anything real, so now that he is being asked to do these things, he doesnt understand what the hell happened to his old life and why he's got to do what Shannon wants and not what he wants. So he's been a big ass bully this week, but he's learning the harsh reality that his BS is not gonna fly. He will come around, I know he will... Even after he gets punished, his ears perk right back up and he's happy again.. so he's not pinning his ears and hating life, he's just testy.

I know with all certainty in me, that Shannon is the best trainer around!! :) I love that girl... she knows exactly what I want out of Willy and is heading that direction with his training. She doesnt just collect her paycheck and then take him out once a day and put 45 minutes on him, then put him back up in the barn.. She works him 2, 3, 4 times a day, just depending on how it all plays out. And I dont mean riding work, sometimes he is ponied, sometimes he just gets some ground work, other times he is left tied in his stall for hours, teaching him patience and acceptance.... Noone else would be this committed to his training or do a better job!

So although I still own a beautiful horse, apparently I have a very naughty spoiled rotten baby and he's requiring more work than I thought, but I am confident he will get where he needs to. Even though he's been a handful this week, Shannon still finds great things to say about his personality and willingness and how he rides. She says for a big bulky horse, he is very smooth and rides real nice. I am hopeful he will come around in 30 days, if not Shannon will be keeping him with her another 30.. if he knows what's good for him, he'll start behaving sooner than later! :) Willy is an investment.. not a financial one because we all know you dont make much money on these animals, but an investment into my future happiness and recreational life.. so I'll spend the money on the potential to get what I want in the end..