So, next on the agenda was selling Flirt. I haven’t really bonded with the poor girl and she just seems to cause a lot of drama within the herd. After a month of no serious responses, I tried again by posting her on CL. Lordy, lordy! Let’s just say that I decided she should stay right here with me because the good people of Georgia are too stupid to own her, much less any horse! If I say she needs an experienced rider, then clearly she isn’t going to be kid safe and good for your 7 year old beginner. And since when do TBs have HYPP? And no, Impromptu (TB) is NOT related to Impressive! And no, she won’t stay fat on just pasture year round. Oy!
Then, reports on Muse came back that she’s “hot and spicy”. She regularly cuts the pony she shares a pasture with. Hmmm… Friesian/TB with possible cow sense? And she jumps. She LOVES to jump. But, after the report of “hot and spicy”, I had planned on selling her in Oregon where the prices are better, rather than transporting her here and basically giving her away and taking a loss on transportation costs.
However…
After the BO where she’s boarded, my friend, my same friend who kept Casey until the shipper could pick up, has avoided contact with me for the last 2 1/2 weeks, after receiving payment for ads for Muse’s sale, and negotiating out a fee for her, I’m ticked off and bringing Muse home. If you can’t be bothered to post an ad in 2 1/2 weeks, what the heck are you doing? I’ve been patient. I’ve sent money. I’ve respected the fact she’s been busy with show season. But, she’s only had one show in this time and it’s now 4 days after the show!
I’m really not a high maintenance boarder. But, if you say you’re going to do something, I expect it to happen. If I pay for you to do it and it doesn’t happen in a reasonable time frame, I’m gonna be a little hot, feel ignored, and take my business elsewhere. In this case, she’ll just come home! I can just as easily do her ground work as well as anybody else.
And while writing this, I got the, “Uh, my phone wasn’t working” excuse. Really? It doesn’t work? The only time I’ve heard of this excuse to cover WEEKS of no contact was with the person I bought Muse from! It sounds like a load of horse pooey! It sounds more like, “I just don’t want to deal with you”. Or, “I’m going to avoid you because I don’t want to tell you something”. Of course, I should admit I’m still a wee bit grumpy in general.
My chickens have been disappearing. It’s a fox. It decided to wake up the house this morning, just about 30′ from my bedroom. Of course the booger was in the woods and I couldn’t see it. My pullet total has dropped in half. I lost 2/3 of my meat birds and one duck. And it’s been hitting them in broad daylight, out in the open. I think we’re going to attempt for live trapping over the next couple weeks. I understand it’s quite tricky, but I don’t want to lose more birds.
BP saw said fox kill a rabbit on the other side of the road this morning. It would be dead had it been on our side.
This evening, Sloan brought home a baby bunny, carried by the scruff, and unharmed. It’s currently in a box, in my bathtub (you know, the one I can’t use because there’s no cold water to it? Yeah, that one!). If it makes it through the night, I’ll release it in the morning away from the fox/chicken area.
Odd that my best hunter would bring home a baby bunny and cry to let me know he had it!
Lyra is settling in well. She’s quickly grown larger than Bob and the Aussie boys. We’ve been mostly teaching her about houses and people and how to be a real dog. She’s starting to come around enough that she is seeking attention and scritches now. She seeks play time and is slowly learning about toys. Paper is still her favorite thing to steal and shred though.
Let me just give you the run down and highlights for the rest of it.
-Dude has summer school. Contrary to promises, he did not get the help he still needs in Math yet again this year. He was not able to meet the state standard in Math by just 19 points and will be retesting next month. Until we get those results, there is no way of knowing if he’ll get grade promotion to 6th grade. All his other test scores were stellar and in the top percentage.
-School ends tomorrow. Summer school starts on Monday, Memorial Day. I have no idea what to expect from the school, but we are already sorely burned out.
– Lost all my veggie starts to an unbelievably warm spring. Some to sunburn, others to the heat. So, we scrapped plans for the garden and will be putting in raised beds elsewhere.
– The garden will have some asparagus transplanted out of it that I discovered there. Then, I’ll probably use it as a goat pen or turkey pen.
-We have an above ground pool. It just needs to be put up.
-Two thin strays have shown up as of this morning. I may have inherited 2 new barn cats. I’m ok with that as long as they don’t hunt my chickens.
*Oh, and since I started writing this, I did hear from my friend with Muse. The old “my phone isn’t giving me messages and just downloaded a ton” excuse is tiring. However, she was perfectly pleasant and I got an update. Muse is learning to pack a snaffle bit and will get the idea of having a saddle on her back, sans person as her knees are still not closed, before she gets on the trailer and heads east. My friend was completely fine with the change in plan and I know she’ll be more than willing to help the process go smoothly. I will give her the benefit of the doubt about the phone, but I do still think it’s time for Muse to come home.
That’s all the news that’s fit to print for now!
Isn’t selling a horse just the most fun thing ever? Really fun when you get a trainer who comes out with the clients, gets on the horse and starts cranking and yanking, then says the horse isn’t suitable for what it’s being listed for . It IS if you have a gentle hand for cryin’ out loud. Good gawd…
Yeah, I’m so glad I have the ability to make sure it’s a good match or to tell someone to get the hell of my horse and off my property.
Okay wow that’s quite the update. Some of it I knew about but a few things caught my by surprise. Most notably that Muse is for sale! I thought the plan was to bring her home but I didn’t know you were selling her.
Oh, and school… I thought you home school?
No, Muse is no longer for sale. She was, but never made it to ANY sale page, hence why I got p*ssed and am bringing her home.
Yes, we “homeschool”, but I use that term loosely. Dude attends an online, public cyber school, so we have to follow their curriculum. Regardless, even if it was straight on homeschooling, he’d be required by law to sit this test anyways and then I’d have to pay for it. This way, he still has a bit of online social aspect and teachers who take some of the load and frustration off my shoulders. Did I mention his almost perfect score in Science?
Sounds like you need a vacation! You have more predators there than I have here. My hens are doing well and the velociraptors only have a few more weeks to live. The mare than I was free leasing has sold (pretty darn easy) and is leaving for her new home on Saturday.
Yes, a vacation would be nice. At least from school. But I have 3 more weeks at least of head banging frustration ahead!
They really do remind you of dinosaurs when they’re younger, don’t they? We compared ours to T-Rexs.
The sheeps just about put me in the poor house with vet bills the past two months. I sold all the lambs but two ewes died from mysterious symptoms and all the test results came back inconclusive. My big ram has laminitis and we are not sure how to treat him.
Don’t you hate that? As for your ram, why not take the horse treatment route with lots of cold hosing, hay soaking, dry lotting, etc? They’re similar enough that cold hosing should help.
My reunion went well and I paid the last bills for that trip today. I am ready for the next one – Vegas in September!
w00t!
I have tried all the horse stuff on Fred in addition to massive doses of LA200, NuFlor, banamine, bute, and aspirin; soaking his front feet in betadine and cold water; pulling the measley 1/2 pound of barley that he gets; and since there is NO GRASS here yet he is essentially in a dry lot. The farrier came to see him the other day and we blue boarded the claw on the foot we think is affected. No dramatic change in his stance or walking but a slight improvement. I am going to change the board to the other claw and see if that makes a difference. Really frustrating!!
We got one fox, but there are another 3. They got my new roo baby and another pullet today. BP is out looking for them and retrieving the body of yesterday’s now. 😦
You have been busy! Sheesh! Hopefully Dude’s school issues get sorted out for you and you can get a bit of a break from that!
Bringing Muse home and dealing with her yourself sounds like a good plan. It seems that so many people just can’t really be trusted. (not that the lady is a bad person or anything…). I’m having issues at my barn with the owners saying that they are doing stuff, when it really isn’t happening. I’m so glad I’m moving out of there.
I know I won’t ever be really happy until Muse is home. If she’d been posted for sale, as discussed, I’d have been fine. But to say you’re having computer problems and not let me know for weeks? WTF? That’s what libraries are for!
I think you’ll be happiest when you have Dolly at your place. Perhaps all the kinks you two have going on will work themselves out then.
Ahhhh, Craigslist ;^)
Oh, I hope you got that pool up to help alleviate the hot summer, but I have a bad feeling you didn’t have time with all this fox hunting.