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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

Spring Break is almost over, and what have we got to show for it?  We have done a couple of shopping days out with my grandmother, keeping her up and going in life.  But those days have not consumed all of spring break, so we have spent some quality time with the horses too.  My goal is for the kids to be able to saddle up on their own and go for a ride together. 

Tuesday of course was the day I got thrown off Precious.  Yesterday Dylan and I got out on Patches (me) and Umber (Dylan).  Both are well trained by comparison to Precious, so there was a lot less drama, and we got to actually go somewhere.  Dylan and I headed north from the house to the little mesa that can be seen from the back yard.  By little, I mean in breadth, not height.  It was a pretty easy ride, and we did not have to stick to trails, so we took the most direct route possible.  After arriving at the East face, we took one of the roads up the side of the mesa.  It was a bit difficult to choose which of the roads to take because we had to pick the shallowest incline with the least amount of sand for the horses to walk through, but could not tell for sure which it was.  After we made our choice, Patches made it fairly well up to the top with only two breaks along the way.  Umber found it a bit more difficult, but finally came marching up to the top like a trooper. 

Dylan and the horses and I checked out the top of the mesa from the north end back down to the south end again.  From the top one can see the Mormon Mountains to the north, with I-15 stretching out in front of it, Angel Peak to the East, with the Mormon Mesa laying below it.  To the West, over California Ridge lie the mountains over Great Basin Highway.  To the south is Lake Meade, and views of the Valley of Fire, and Logandale Trails, as well as Overton and Logandale.  The top of the mesa is flat and relatively featureless, apart from some sand dunes.  There is also a gap that separates the part we were on from a little section at the north end of the mesa. 

After taking all of the mesa in, and talking to some quad bikers who came up, we took off down the same road we came up.  I asked Dylan if he thought it was scarier coming up, or going down.  He was not sure, but I noted the fact that going down you can see where you are going to land if you fall off.  We carried on down, and somehow before we got half way down, Dylan got Umber’s right reign twisted up in her front legs, and had to stop to get it out.  Try that on a steep incline.  I had trouble getting Patches to turn round and go back up, but Dylan was lucky that I had just happened to show him how to get a horse to lift its hoof before we left, so he used that skill to get Umber to step up out of her reign.  He also did some neat trick where he showed me how to get Umber to step on his feet and almost sit on him, but that’s one I think I will forget as soon as I finish writing this sentence.  What was I talking about?  About three quarters of the way down we took a detour off the trail and cut our own way to the bottom of the south end of the mesa.  We definitely went places that quad bikes and four wheel drives would have gotten hung up in. 

By the time we finally made it to the bottom, I asked Dylan if he understood a little bit better why you sometimes hear a line in the western films where the guy says to the dude that he trusts his horse more than any man.  ‘Yes,’ was his reply. 

We carried on home, occasionally running the horses, but when we got in sight of the family in the back yard, we cut loose and ran full pelt to the road, turned sharp, and ran into the gate at the front of the property.  It sure is nice to have such an awesome trailhead 30 feet from the front gate!  The boys both cooled the horses down and unsaddled them. 

I have told them that I want them to saddle up two horses today, and ride them around on the hillside in front of the house, where we can see them, and get some practice riding on their own, as I would like by the end of the week for them to be able to saddle up and go for a ride together when they want. 

Today, Saturday, and Sunday to go! 

By 8 AM, I had been thrown from a horse, and by 11 AM I was in Vegas Baby!  That about sums it up.  =-)

Okay, the trip to Vegas was for shopping, so it was not a thrilling time in the casinos blowing money, the deed to the house, and all of an underfunded retirement fund.  But it was fun anyhow to just look around a couple of stores.

I got up at 5:30 to give Jordan a chance to have a sunrise ride on the horses.  We took Patches, a charming rider, but ever hungry, and Precious, a lousy rider, and never hungry.

Jordan got Precious, who gave him no end of trouble for the time he was on her.  She would not budge, then she did, but then she’d stop and back up while he was trying to go forward.  Then she’d try to kick with one of her hind legs.  Finally she started trying to give a little buck.  I gave up watching her do this and told JJ to trade me horses.  Now, I am not sure what possesses a man to trade his perfectly sound horse for one that is trying to say “hey, I am not going to go on this ride, no matter what you do, and by the way, I am five times your size, so you just try and do what you want about it.”  But, I did.

Precious tried the same routine with me, however, she added rearing to the mix.  The way to stop a horse from rearing is to pull its head all the way to the left or the right so she is planting her nose right at the stirrup.  She can’t get her weight upwards from that position.  So I did that whenever she started acting up because I did not want her to rear up on me as I have personally never been on a horse that is rearing up.

It worked a treat, and I was able to keep her on the ground.  Pulling the reign and the horses head to the side is certainly the right thing to do so long as the rider catches her about to rear up!  Finally, I missed one of her gestures, and up she went.  I must have blinked, and I certainly don’t remember much about how she got herself up there, but somehow I seem to remember a flash of the ground underneath me.  Perhaps that was because I hit it and it smashed into the backs of my eyeballs!  Whatever the case, I landed on my back, then jumped up, grabbed the reign, and the riding whip to give her the obligatory “don’t do that” response.  If anyone noticed the sky turning a darker shade of blue, that was me too.  Amid all this, I could hear JJ keep asking, “are you all right?”  So I turned quickly to him and said, “my back hasn’t felt better in years!”  I had popped my entire spine when I hit the ground, and am thinking it is a cheap alternative to a professional chiropractor.  I may be offering services, if not needing them first.  Really, I realized straight away how lucky I was that I did not hit a rock or have the horse come over on me, or something worse.  And that realization is what turned me back to Precious straight away to finish painting her blue with more language and the like.

The trick is not to beat the horse or abuse it all the while this stuff is happening, because the goal is a trained horse, not a problem horse.  So after letting her know what’s what about her actions, I lead her along for a few yards, then got back on her.  After that, I had very few problems with her, and she rode the trail about as well as could be expected from Patches.

As it turns out, the business people say about getting back in the saddle again is not about overcoming your fear of falling out, it is about teaching the horse that no matter what, you will be coming back for more, and that her endeavors to kick you off are, and will remain fruitless.  It took actually getting knocked off for myself to finally learn what that expression really means!

As for our Jordan, he told me after that he really wished he had my camera for that, because “Precious looks so beautiful when she is reared up like that!”  Cheers JJ!