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This morning’s fun and games started at 4:00 when JJ and I got up and ate breakfast, then got ourselves ready to go for a ride on Patches and Umber.  By the time we got over the time and got the horses saddled and a few things done, it was still just before 5:00 when we left the property.  The temperature was perfect for a short sleeved shirt.  I could not complain at all. 

We took off over the hill across the street, then headed south to the Fairgrounds, and eventually down to Jordan’s high school, and then back again.  The horses did really well on the ride apart from playing us up when we got back to the fairgrounds and found another horse there that looked very much like Precious, the horse we had left in the stable this morning. 

After getting back and feeding the animals, JJ and I had to go back down to the high school to pick up some of his ceramics projects that had been in the kiln yesterday.  We also ran into a teacher of his in the hall, and talked to him about JJ’s performance in English class, and what it is like in England.  As it happens, the teacher’s wife lived in England for six years, so he has visited, and also has her opinions on life there. 

When we arrived home again, JJ talked to his dad, and then we had lunch, and went for naps.  We are trying out the siesta schedule, so we can be awake in the cooler parts of the days, rather than burning up in the 100’s like I am doing now due to my slightly early wakeup. I only have the baby to blame, right? 

It didn’t much matter that Kiry woke me as I would have been woke up soon by the man who brings us the alfalfa cubes.  He stopped by to ask if he could drop off tomorrow morning as he has to go see the doctor about a cut on his leg that is apparently getting infected. 

Tomorrow we are going to go to town and pick up some more chickens that Jordan had ordered.  They have all but one of his in, and then the only thing left it the Turkeys that I ordered the other day.  There is going to be a yummy supper on the table for Christmas! 

Kelsey J Bacon

Patches

This guy is in for a bit of training right now with the help of one of our neighbors, without which we would be just lost as to what to do with him at the moment as none of us have trained horses before.  He is not a terrible ride, just a little rude and rough around the edges, so we are taking that off, and helping him to get over himself where needed.  For one, the guy has a terrible eating habit.  He especially likes to dive his head down for food when he is descending a hill, so that I have to be leaning back to stay on, and he is leaning further forward as he dives, giving himself amply opportunity to get his food without me giving him a whack on the withers.  But once we get it in his head who is in control, and not to eat, I think he will be a great horse, and so does his trainer!

Patches and I go a long way back to when he was just a colt, and had injured himself very badly trying to escape through an electric fence.  His owner, a farmer, was going to put him down, but my grandmother acquired him with the demand that he don’t be put down, but given a chance with her instead.  That was about the time I came out to stay with the grandparents to help out with him, and their ranch. 

My job was an easy one.  I only had to hold him in the cold Idaho air as the sun rose, while David injected him, and washed his wounds.  The worst wound was on Patches’ hind leg where as it turned out, a piece of wire from the electric fence has gotten wrapped around the bone.  How his leg ever survived that I will probably never understand, but it did, and we spent weeks nursing it back to health.

When he arrived at the ranch, Patches could hardly walk, but by the time the grandparents were ready to move south to their winter home in Nevada, I had gotten him out into the pasture and walked him around, continually a little faster till one day I could not hold his lead rope anymore, and he ran past me, and I had to set him free.  He has been running free since, and despite warnings from the vet that he’d always have troubles with his leg, till he finally would have to be put down, Patches is absolutely fine to this day.  He’s proven himself a strong horse. 

Now, I have probably told this story on this blog before, but as I got to spend that time with Patches when he was young, and now have him for myself, I do consider him a friend as well as a horse.  With summer upon is, and the kids about to get out of school for it, we are looking forward to near daily riding, and some time to really work all the horses out.  So, while the adventure has long begun, it now begins again. 

Kelsey J Bacon

I was stood outside with the hose, having just filled up a water tank for the horses, I turned my back for a moment, then turned around again to find one of the horses laying on her side, breathing shallow, and her front hooves through the fence, while the rear hooves were in the air doing the Dead Roach imitation. 

I thought for a moment she may be playing around, so I snapped a couple of photos of her, then told the baby to stay put and jumped the fence to check Precious out.  Her breathing was shallow, and she would not move.  There were flies gathering around her en mass. 

“Oh Hell!  What do I do if she is dying?  I can’t exactly mover her anywhere!”  My mind took grasp of the situation, and I took the baby in to tell her mom what was up and leave her there while I sought help. 

Katrina came out and had a look too, then I ran off to the neighbor’s house to ask his advice.  He immediately said it sounded like colic, and grabbed out a syringe, and two drugs from his fridge.  Go figure!  Apparently I need to have these laying around the house when I have horses, just like I would have aspirin for my own headaches.  Well, I’ll have two aspirin for the horses! 

Next thing you know, this nice neighbor is over at our house and we are injecting the horse with a sedative and a muscle relaxer to help her clear her bowels, which in the end took her more than two hours to do. 

Thanks to the neighbor, Dave, we have Precious on all fours again, and behaving like a horse should!  But if you saw THIS laying in your yard…

…What would you do?

Our kids would probably like it if we got drunk and had a hangover on a Sunday morning, but that’s just not the case!  So, we got up relatively early and got to work on the garden, and several other jobs around the house too! 

The garden needed some seeds sown, and some weeds pulled.  We finally filled all the soil in the back with vegetable seeds, which never got done up till now because I have always had either other things going on or a two year old that I couldn’t tend to on my own while working the garden and keeping her out of mischief.  Today I got the full help of the entire family enlisted, and we put in loads.  The soil here is so sandy that the only place we have dared to plant has been in a place in the back where topsoil has been laid down.  But we ran out of space, so as an experiment we put some corn in the sand in the front, in the middle of the circle drive, where some small bits of old farming gear is.  I thought the corn plants would make a lovely backdrop, like there is a miniature farm there. 

The next gig on the agenda was to sort out lunch, then try to work with the horses.  Missus decided to give them a comb through their mane’s and maybe try braiding them.  The braiding will require stronger bands than Missus has round the house, so that’s on the shopping list.  The coming could have gone better for her too.  We did get the pony, Umber, to cooperate for a good going over.  She only weights about 750 or 800 pounds, so she is easy to control compared to Precious, who weighs in at about 1,000, and Patches, who comes in at about 1,250.  After finishing Umber everyone gave up and went in, except me.  I stood there with the horses till Precious, the one we thought least likely to get a comb today, came up and let me give her a good combing over.  Patches kept wanting to know what was going on, so after finishing with Precious he got a good work over too.  The funny thing is that I was able to work both of those horses together, and untied.  It shows what patience can accomplish.

I was pretty worn out from being in the sun for so long after combing the horses, and of course doing the gardening.  But the next job was to put up a saddle rack in the shed and move the saddles from the horse trailer onto it, so I got that done, then had a lovely Shepherd’s Pie that Jordan made. 

After supper, Jordan and I went out to the shed and sorted through some tack and such, and found reigns to replace the ones that had broken on my halter for Patches.  I also tried the reigns in a position that would give less leverage pulling down against him, and that worked out fairly well, though he is a bit of a jerk and needs to learn to cooperate quite a bit more than he does.  Patches has probably never actually been broke properly, and he certainly has not been trained properly, a problem we are having with all three of our horses.  We are learning as fast and as much as we can so as to determine if we have horse problems, or our horses have people problems! 

By the time I have finished with hoeing, raking, shoveling, planting, watering, and doing it all over again a few times, then horsing around, the sorting and checking and moving and assembling and saddling and riding and unsaddling and sorting and putting away and everything else, I am pretty tired!  I did my jobs today, and the chickens did theirs, and everyone else did theirs as well.  I am glad the week is starting again!  I could use the break!  It would have been easier to just get really, really, REALLY drunk and pass out for a day or two!  But we got more done! 

Need to get pictures to follow, I know… 

Kelsey J Bacon

Yesterday we had a talk in the morning about the family’s priorities, and after coming up with a list of things we all wanted to get sorted out here, and the way we want to live, we decided that a part of it would be to go to St. George, Utah and see how it compares to Las Vegas as a shopping base for the once a month shop. 

The drive up was quite nice.  Rather than taking the freeway up the Virgin River Canyon, we drove the old route, which had hardly any cars on it, and was pretty in it’s own right.  It entered the city through an historic district which was quite pretty! 

After getting there, we visited the DI, and shopped for various randomness.  DI is Deseret Industries, a thrift store, and in St. George, it is frequented by RLDS polygamous families so much that I am quite sure I have seen some there on every single trip we have made to it. 

The nest shopping stop was at Big Lots!, which was once called Pic N Save.  It’s a discount store that has attracted my family for years.  We also spotted Wal Mart and a Cosco store while we were out. 

After shopping, we took a drive around looking for the IFA, but gave up because we were all hungry, and stopped at the Golden Corral for supper.  For about $10 a person you can have access to a massive all-you-can-eat buffet that never seems to run out of anything, and has food of very sufficient quality.  The kids thought it was just about as good as it gets, and swore that this was the place to take their dad when he comes to visit.  It sounds like they will need to put a travel trailer in the parking lot! 

Our server at Golden Corral knew exactly where the IFA was, so he wrote us up directions right to it from the restaurant.  Unfortunately it was closed by the time we got there.  After noting the hours and considering the time zone difference, should we like to come again, we took off down the Virgin River Canyon for home.  We stopped in Mesquite and into the Wal Mart store there, where we got a new alarm clock, and an electric kettle, so my dear Brits could finally feel at home again!  We also got some seeds for the vegetable patch, which I need to get up and go plant now. 

By the way, don’t wake up at 6:30 after staying up till 1:00.  It’s just not the way to get a good night’s sleep! 

There are so many things that I could go on about right now, many personal, and a thing or two in the news.  Let me stick to the events in the personal by saying that the grandparents have gone up to Idaho for the summer and will be coming back a few times between now and the autumn.  The first trip back will be in a week or so to pick up some things for the summer.  We have been given the horses, and we are working hard at getting enough money together to pay the bills accordingly, as we are standing on our own two feet as soon as we can, and the best we can.  We have so much to do!  With the horses, and the house, and the kids, we have got a lot to work on.  JJ and Dylan are learning to ride, and how to train the horses, and I am watching and learning what I can so I can work the same on Patches as they will be on Precious and Umber. 

All the while this is going on, we have been fortunate enough to have been given a gift from the same neighbor who is training us with the horses, and that was more than enough meat to get us through the summer.  They have got a new cow, and needed to clear the last one out to make space.  It is lovely meat, and it will certainly hold us over! 

Granny took two of our chickens to Idaho as layers for themselves, and bought the two for me to raise to the point of lay, as I had requested her to do.  It is good!  Maybe we need to breed a few breeds to enjoy around here! 

Katrina is working away hard, and doing well at the moment!  Considering the lousy job market in Las Vegas, she is really lucky to have the work she does.  Things are going well for her!  I won’t get into specifics, not to minimize what she does, but to respect the privacy of her clients!

JJ and Dylan are aching for the end of the school year.  This will be their first summer in America, and they are really excited about the extended summer holidays here!  I am too, at the moment!  It will be great to have them around to work with the horses, and to work on the ranch.  There is so much to do around here, and I am looking forward to getting it all done!  We can’t get the grandparents to agree to every change we would like to do because they have been paying the bills on the place, and worry ever so much about the price of water.  We have cleared the leaks and sorted the usage of water and electricity out, so the costs have fallen dramatically, and we should be able to afford to water some peach trees and the like.  We also have found out that some of the trees we have here were already being watered far more then necessary, so we have to arrange around that, and keep the cost down there too! 

The garden has had its troubles!  I need to do raised beds, and that is all there is to that!  The wind kicked the crap out of several of our plants, and there are others perishing after the winds too.  I have got to figure that out, but I would not doubt that it is to do with the amount of sand the wind carried onto the floor of the garden beds.  In the end, I think the raised beds will give us the height over the sand, and the ability to hold water in the soil longer. 

Hey, did you hear that Osama Bin Laden is dead?  Just like after 9/11, conspiracies are already evolving.  So what?  The question I have is, was he even relevant anymore?  I suppose it was a symbolic killing as much as anything, as it certainly won’t end ‘terrorism.’  Much of what is called terrorism is a matter of perspective and resources anyhow.  Call it what you will, I call it not a war on terror, but a war of civilizations.  It is relatively cool now, and if we are not careful, it will heat up to boiling, and nobody will be the better for it apart from those who stayed out of it.  In the end, I think it will all look pretty cool as to what is to come when the oil starts to cease.  Then all hell will break loose, eh?

Okay, enough of my political commentary crap.  Just tell me why at 11:40 at night, my two year old is still awake in my bed?  Moreover, why am I?

Night all, and I hope that if nothing else, this post breaks the deadlock that keeps hitting my fingers before I type a post for any of my blogs!  Nothing works, and it is because I am in need of a detoxification process to eliminate certain toxins that have invaded my existence lately!  Moving on!

Night all!

Kelsey J Bacon