Drift Into Overdrive

Drift Into Overdrive is a very special horse. She is Baby Huey's momma. She is such a fine animal. I love her. She has produced some really great babies, and I have the best of them. My friend Joleen owns her, and she loves her too. Drift is such a nice mare. She loves attention and is always polite. She is one of those horses that is a joy. She doesn't fight or act marish. Just a good girl. She may come keep Susie company when Baxter goes to the trainer. What a treat for me :) She is one of those keeper mares. She will have a home until she dies, and she deserves it.

Here are some pictures of her. Joleen and I speculate that she has shrunk a bit in the last few years. I distinctly remember her being taller than this :) And see the blue spot in her eye? That's cool.

Dancing in the dark

Rules for feeding animals of the equine persuasion after sundown :

Rule #1. Try never to feed in the dark.

Rule #2. If you must feed in the dark, always remember that horses can see quite well without much light. You may have a difficult time seeing a black horse in the dark (ya think?), but he is busy playing peekaboo with you. Be afraid.

Rule #3. Remember that Prisoner Y perceives any deviation from normal routine as an excuse to play. This is when Hide and Seek begins. I find it horrifying that a huge horse can be so damn quiet. It is not amusing to turn around and find yourself face to face with a two foot long nose. Note: "Playing" with a 15oo lb horse in the dark is not fun. GAH!

Rule#4. Never ever depend on the feeders being where you left them. Baby Huey has other plans. Now the fun begins.

Rule #5. While searching for missing feeders (see rule 4), never assume that you will find them. Have a backup plan in place, and prepare to lose whatever container you use for the backup. Baby Huey is a busy boy.

Rule #6. Never depend on the prisoners becoming bored and patiently waiting for you to serve their slop, while you are searching a three acre paddock for the slop bowls. As soon as you are lulled into a false sense of security, you will hear thundering hooves. Prepare to die.

Rule #7. Never assume that a deaf horse can't find you in the dark. He may be deaf, but his snooter works just fine, and he *knows* that you have a tiny apple wafer crumb in your jacket pocket. He knows this because he can smell it from 5 miles away in a good stiff wind. He feels obligated to hunt you down and wrest it from your frail body.

Rule #8. Never try to escape from the prisoner in the dark. Remember he can see better than you can, even though you have a flashlight, and he will mow you down to retrieve the cookie. Screaming like a cat on fire while running through knee high dead grass only encourages the prisoner to persue you more intently. Throwing the apple wafer and running in the opposite direction may buy you enough time to reach safety.

Rule #9. Accept the fact that after you have searched all the usual places and come up empty handed you must use the shabby torn slop bowls. As soon as you have admitted defeat, the good bowls magically appear but it is too late. You have already poured the slop in the icky bowls.

Rule #10. Be happy that only one of the prisoners felt the need to assault you, and you did not recieve any crippling injuries. Whew!

I think this picture captures my recent mood fairly well. It's been there less than a week and this is all that's left. It was a good sized deer.

The Chaps

Well, here they are. We are a little disappointed, but I guess it was a good learning experience. This woman bills herself as a custom chap maker. What she actually does is custom-ize chaps. She has a bunch made up in various sizes and has you try them on until one fits "good". This should have been our first warning. She didn't ever take any measurements. She found one that she felt fit well enough, and made his from that pattern.

Bill wanted red/burgundy, so we had to order the leather, which was fine. He wanted some shield knots on them, and we figured that would be simple for someone who supposedly had a lot of experience. Well, we figured wrong. If you click on these pictures you will see the lack of attention to detail. I am not just randomly bitching about this. I have done plenty of applique work, and a lot of leatherwork and this is unacceptable for a pair of chaps that cost $550.

We do like how the colors worked out. They are different, but not too gaudy and I think they are bright enough to make people notice him, which was the main purpose with going custom.

We think they look ok, but the lower legs are not great. They are waaay too loose, and it wasted quite a bit of leather. *sigh* We have begun to seriously consider this as a way to supplement our income. We have a heavy duty sewing machine that we have used to make tents in the past, so that major expense is already done. Between the two of us, we have enough leatherworking experience to do this, and do it well. Bill is very anal retentive about things being perfect, so nobody would walk away disappointed. Now all we have to do is make up a couple of pair and get people to wear them as advertising. I don't understand why someone would spend $30K on a bike that is all dolled up and fancified, and then wear the same chaps as every other biker. We are going to make a pair for my brother I think. He is pretty active, and lots of folks see him. Maybe some flames down the legs, or wings as a yoke.

I think there is a wide open market for true customs made to fit a person, and appliqued to match their bikes. Maybe I will be able to retire someday! Woot!

Bricks and slate

This job was for our tear-out guy Skip. His poor wife has been waiting for a front walk and porch for three years. We found time to do it before the big job and apparently she loves it. If momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. Skip is happy. All in all, a nice little job.

We always dislike putting a second color/pattern border in the middle of something. It is a huge pain in the ass, and makes things way more complicated. In this case, we could have poured this in one day, but the border made that impossible. The right side , brick wall, and border were done in one pour, and the left side with it's brick wall were done in the second pour.Bill tried really hard to talk her out of it, but she knew what she wanted, and it really does look sharp. I have never done the brick wall before. It was pretty neat. I love the crow foot tool that makes the corners.This is after it was sealed. You can see the slate texture nicely.
This is all handwork. Fun stuff :)

sick and tired

You know that trite old saying? I am sick and tired of being sick and tired? Well I am. I am tired of being depressed. I am just tired. I hate the holidays. I hate all the fake cheer and fakely cheery people. I am sick of it all.

Big job update

The concrete guy on the big job in Broken Arrow called us. He wanted to let us know that the entire job had been shut down because his dirt dood had cut a four inch gas line. Holy Mother! That is so dangerous. I am glad it did not happen while we were working there. Anyhow, more delays... We did manage to pick up one small and one middle sized job. The small one is done and I will have pictures next week after it's sealed. It is a very cool job. The middle sized one is an entry for a bank. We are supposed to start it next week. I am not holding my breath...I do not look good in blue.

I *love* my work...

Well hell.

I finally saved up enough money for a new tattoo. I have been itching to have some passionflowers done on my right arm so I won't look so lopsided. So I trundled my butt over to the tattoo shop. The tattoo shop is in the rear of a head shop in Broken Arrow. It is sort of a seedy place, but you just walk through and they don't bother you, so it's ok. I got back there, and there wasn't a soul in the place. I looked around and Lesa's painting was gone.... and so was all of her stuff. Damn. I am not happy. I went to the counter in the head shop and asked where she was. He told me she had been fired and no longer worked there. I made an educated guess of "lateness an missed appointments". He said yes. I was neither shocked nor surprised. She was late a lot. I didn't mind because she does good work, and from what I have gathered, it is pretty typical of tattoo folks to have some quirks. *sigh* She emailed me a while ago and told me that she had finally gotten enough money together to open her own shop. She was not a happy camper working there, but it costs a ton to open your own place, so she had to wait. I told her to let me know when she got set up and I would come by. So now I have to wait until she reads her email, which is not frequently. I don't know what I will do if she doesn't answer me. I definitely am not thrilled about finding a new artist. Not just anyone is going to be allowed to put anything permanent on my frail little body. It is hard to find someone decent. So I will wait... patience is not my forte, but I will try.

Gloom, Despair, and Agony on ME!

Deep dark depression...excessive misery...

Ok, not really but not such a great start to the week. We just came back from the big job in Broken Arrow that has been on contract for almost a full year. We were told two weeks ago that today they would be ready. We went by this weekend to check, and found they had about 500 sq. feet ready. Whoopie! There are over 15K square feet on this project. It is supposed to be done by January 1, 2009. AAahahahahahahahaha!!!! Foolish mortals.

Bill and I talked about it, and decided the only way to rock these fine gentlemen off high center was to just show up and start pushing. Unfortunately, they have bigger equipment, so our baby push was met with a big ole backhoe. Damn. Here is what really sucks. We have turned down about twenty five thousand dollars worth of work that we could have gotten done in the next two weeks. Since they have lied to us, and they are not going to be ready till the END of next week we are screwed. Not only did we turn down the work, but they are going to cause us to be unable to meet the project deadline. I sure hope they like payint those liquidated damages, cause I sure ain't gonna. That will give us 3 days to work and then the Thanksgiving holiday. I swear. Why do people have to be dishonest? Why couldn't they just tell us they werent't ready? We are trying to contact the other jobs and see if we can beg them to let us do the work.

Some days it does NOT pay to get out of bed. Damn...

new pics

I finally added the before pics to Mr. Steffawn's post.

Mr. Steffawn....Fabulous!

Our latest project was a patio for some friends. They had a pergola put up in their back yard, and wanted a new patio to go under it. It is a beautiful thing, made of rough cedar with lots of embellishment. It was fun to do their patio. It has been a long time since anyone was this excited about their new concrete.

We met Randy and Annette through my brother Stephen. They are all members of a local Harley owners group. They go everywhere together, and have been really good friends for a long time.

Stephen was the designer for this project. Well, not really. He was the designated fidget. He had to make sure that everything was just so....so fidgety. I swear, he was more worried than Randy and Annette. He asked more questions, double checked more patterns and colors, and in general had more anxiety than any of the rest of us put together. He instant messaged and called me so much the week before the job that I seriously considered having him kidnapped and taken away until the job was finished. Of course, he wanted to make sure that R&A were happy with their new patio. He fretted so much that we renamed him Mr. Steffawn. He is not happy about this, but the rest of us laugh. He acted so much the typical decorator (fuss, fuss, fuss!)that we could not resist. He threatens us with bodily harm... funny guy. Uh Mr. Steffawn? This isn't our first pour...really :)

Anyhow, back to the patio. The cover is actually half roofed and half pergola. Under the roofed part, they wanted a simple pattern that was nice and flat for the patio furniture. Under the pergola section, they wanted the forest floor pattern. We did a ripple slate skin under the roof. This is a seamless pattern that you can either score in a design, or leave in large blocks. They opted for a two by two foot pattern, scored on the diagonal. This always makes an elegant look. Bill profiled the house with a nice six inch border to make it look finished. On the pergola end, we used the same slate pattern, along with the tropical leaves, and maple leaves that are native here. I also pulled a couple of leaves off of the trees in their yard and used those too. I really like this pattern. It is pretty labor intensive - lots of crawling on hands and knees, but the result is worth it. We used a lot of colors to hand tint this time. There were 6 different colors, along with the antiquing. I also combined some colors to mimic the leaves changing colors in fall. It was pretty interesting. Hopefully, by next summer we will have a new leaf pattern that is strictly native plants. There are a lot of very interesting leaves here, and it will make a nice pattern for hand coloring. I just have to preserve some leaves until I have time to make the new pattern...there is never enough time.

It was very nice working for R&A. They were so excited. After we got the patio poured, we told them that it would have to cure for a week before we could clean, color, and seal it. Of course, since daylight savings time has come it gets dark before they get home from work. On the day we poured the patio, they were out with flashlights trying to see what it looked like! The day we cleaned and sealed it, they again took the flashlights out and looked it over. Apparently it was like a bunch of little kids at Christmas! I think that is great. I guess I am so jaded that it's nice to see someone excited about their slab :) A called us, and was so excited that I just had to laugh. We met them for dinner the next day, and they were all grins. Fun!

Here are pictures. I sooo need a nicer camera. I had a difficult time getting good shots of the texture, and leaves, but you can get an idea. I thought I had all the pics here, but alas some are at home. I will add before and during shots tonight.

The shoe fairy came!!!

I have been lusting after a couple of pair of shoes on Ebay for about a year. I am such a tightwad that I didn't want to pay $49 a pair for them. I wear them out so fast I hate spending that much on them. So, periodically I search for them, just to look at the pictures... I am such a doofus.

First off, you have to understand that due to having had a pretty bad club foot (and many corrective surgeries), I am very limited in what kind of shoes I can wear. No high heels, no flip flops or clog type things. My knee goes out in high heels, and because of my foot, I can't even begin to keep anything without an enclosed heel on. It also helps of I have ankle support, so I am limited to very low heels, ala Ropers, or flat shoes - like tennis shoes. I look for shoes all the time, and when I find them cheap I throw them in with the rest of the ones waiting to be worn. I am not particular, because everything I wear ends up trashed, so any color is fine with me.

Anyway, back to my story... I finally broke down and paid the $49 + shipping for the two pair I have been looking at for a year, and guess what? They showed up today! YAY! I think I am going to swoon, they are so pretty! I am NOT going to wear these to work. Nope, no way Jose. These are for dress up! LMAO! At least they are sparkly :) Perfect for a Fairy Princess eh? Ohhh Iridescent sparkly love! My Shoes!!! The ones on the right are actually a sort of green with greyish overtones, kind of dusky. Hard to get a good picture. Bliss!

Here are some of my other shoes, just in case you don't have any water to boil, or some other equally engaging task. These little beauties are my current pair of work shoes. They are covered with color, release, sealer, and other assorted icky stuff.

I like Black because it makes my feet look really small! Ha!

Here are the ones i am wearing right now. They are riding sneakers. They are also covered with grunge. Poor things. These are incredibly difficult to find, as nobody makes them any more. I snag a pair every once in a while. Lucky me! I love them, till they are in pieces...and then a while longer.

This is a pair I got off Ebay. When I saw the ad, I missed the part that said they were patent. Even as odd as I am, I find it really difficult to wear patent leather shoes to work on concrete. So they sit in my office, and I look at them. And they shine. I dunno... maybe some day I will wear them. They are awfully dressy for climbing up the ladder on a mixer though.

Here are the doggers inspecting the goods. I think they both approve. They like my work shoes because they have dog hair all over them. Their dog hair. They smell best.

Next, I will show you all my riding sneaks..... Bet you can't wait.....

Black cats are bad luck.

I know this because yesterday afternoon I went out to the barn early so I could catch the Bax Man and smear some fungus goop on his back legs. It was a beautiful day. I opened up the feed area and he came right in. I went and got his halter, and he came right over to me to get hooked up. As I was reaching around his neck to put the rope around him, out of the brush pile shoots this wild assed black cat. Of course it ran right between the water tanks and behind Bax. Of course he shot forward...right over the top of me. Smashed my sunglasses into my nose, stepped on my left foot (thank god it wasn't my surgically engineered one), and jammed my right hand. At least he just ran me down and didn't kick out at the cat as he ran off. I watched as his feet flew past me, thinking I was dead meat. If he had kicked out I would have been at the very least (more) brain dead, or perhaps just plain dead.

I am a very lucky girl. I could have been very smashed up, or worse. As it is, I have some bruises, and a couple of scrapes, but nothing serious. Guess I have some more desensitizing work to do.

I hate that cat... and the goats that are probably what flushed the cat out of the brush. I really only hate the cat because it sprays the back of my little feed room and stinks up the whole thing. Stupid Cat.

Houdini

Here is Houdini. I have no idea what his real name, or even if he has one. I call him that because apprently he can escape from every fence on the place. I have not seen him for a couple of days, so either his owner got some ass kicking hotwire up, someone stole him, he ran away, or he is in horsey heaven.... He is a cute little thing though.

Does anyone care....

I mean really, does *anyone* care whether or not Toby Keith shaves his pits? Really? Geebus, someone needs to get a life.

Interesting

I was looking at my site meter, checking out where people are from. I noticed that about 75% of the people from another country are finding my blog by searching for things like hairy blondes, bloody murder, or tattooed ladies.

About the same percentage of people in the US have either been referred by someone who has a horse blog, or they are looking for pictures of concrete.

Isn't that interesting? Things that make you go Hmmmmmm?

Some people should not own horses.

There are few things more annoying, to me, than someone who has a butt ton of horses and doesn't give a damn about them. Todays diatribe is brought to you by the pretty dappled gray pony that has been standing outside my paddock for the last two days. I have called the barn manager and left messages about him. He is constantly roaming around loose, and often people don't see him, so they leave the gate to the road open. This is a disaster waiting to happen. This morning, the gate was open, and I drove up to my paddock...guess who was there. You got it. The pretty pony. I called the BM again. He finally answered right before his voice mail picked up. He sounded sleepy, which is unusual because he works nights, and is just getting off about the time I feed. I told him that the pony was out *again*, and the gate was open. That is when he said he was in California, and could I please close the gate! Bwaaahahahaha! I woke his ass up! He mumbled something about the pony's owner needing to buy some hot tape for the paddock, since said menace was such a Houdini. He also said something about the pony not seeming to go towards the gate! Holy Cwap Batman! Uh.... it will only go out the gate and be smashed by a car once. (This has actually happened at this place)

Skip to this afternoon. I drove up to feed, and who is still there? Houdini is munching on the icky alfalfa I threw on the burn pile for the bazillion mini goats that roam loose. He has apparently been there all day, judging by the number of poop piles. When I drove up, he left. He trotted across to visit the bay horse who is three legged crippled (I called the BM about him too, see extended rant below*) I fed my two and went to get their hay. Here he comes. He is smart.... he knows about being caught. He followed along down the stallion lane while I took the hay to the barn. Of course, when I went out with the halter, he left. Bastard.

I went down to the main barn to see if anyone knew who owned Houdini, and where his dappled ass belonged. Apparently, his rather absentee owner doesn't come to the barn often. She also apparently would not miss him if he were loaded up and taken to timbuktu. *Apparently* she has fifteen horses in the far back pasture. She is totally unconcerned that one of her horses could get killed on the road, or worse yet, cause a person or a whole car full of people to die. This is one example of someone who should not own horses in my never to be humble opinion.

*Extended rant: The bay horse I mentioned above appeared along with three other horses in the paddock directly across the road from mine. This is not an unusual occurrence as people and horses are in and out of this place like a revolving door. I noticed that he was three legged. His right hind was useless and he was hobbling around looking very uncomfortable. I called the BM (I love how those initials work out! HA!)and told him the horse was crippled. He said that those three horses were not even supposed to be in there, and he didn't know how they'd gotten there. He supposed they had come through the back fence. Of course he would call the owner... and of course the horse is still out there, still crippled. Rant on! Another former client had about 50 fricking broodmares. The woman's hubby passed and left her an apparently endless supply of dollars so she went to the auction and bought every mare anyone was selling. Then she hauled them all to various stallions to have them bred. Sheesh eh? Well, one of them was a pretty gray mare. I always looked for her. One day she was standing all spraddle legged by the front fence. Hmmmm. I had noticed something hanging down under her belly. I went over to look, and this poor mare had a fricking fist sized hole in her belly. Fortunately, there were no guts hanging out, but it was a nasty wound. I called the BM... of course he would call the owner. He thought they had called the vet.... Uh yeah, sure. Every vet I know who actually graduated from an accredited university and passed the boards would have shaved and trimmed that wound, even if they couldn't suture it. 'Cause you can't suture a wound that is DAYS old. Fortunately it did not kill her.

The BM is the same guy who periodically sends out these idiotic demands... like you WILL vaccinate for WNV, and you WILL bring me proof that you have done this. Uh BM? Kiss my ass. What about rabies you idiot? There are just a lot of people in this world who should not own animals...or breed.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled...whatever :)

Quirks I gots 'em

My friend Holly challenged me to list 6 quirks and then tag 6 other bloggers to do the same. Ok, let's see....

1. I am a tomboy. A 46 year old tomboy. As a little kid, I never played with dolls, or dress-up, or getting into mom's makeup. I still view all of the above with a sneer. There is nothing wrong with trucks I tell ya!

2. I must own a horse. I found this out when I went for a few years without one. There was always this feeling that something was missing, or undone. I figured it out when I bought Emmett, and the feeling went away.

3. I worked as an animal lab technician in a research facility. I liked it. I can tell if there is a mouse in my house by smell.

4. I am a concrete finisher.... (is that technically a quirk, or just mental illness disguised?)

5. I have been married (to the same guy) for almost 22 years... I think that is a quirk today. I only want to kill him with my bare hands about twice a day.

6. I have aphasia from a serious head injury. I lose words...I don't remember things like people's faces, and have short term memory problems.

There! I did it. Well, I did most of it. I only post comments to a couple of blogs, and lurk on a few. I hate to break the "chain", but I don't feel right asking someone who doesn't know me at all.... Hope you're not too disappointed :)

Help!! I've fallen and I can't get up!

Ok, how many of you have watched those commercials where some poor little old lady is rescued because she has the panic button around her neck? Now, how many of you have made fun of same? I admit it, I have. I have made fun of people who have fallen down by sing-songing that commercial at them. Karma, being the Bitch that she is, gave me a good dose of that today.

We were staining a deck and interior up at Grand Lake. Every house up there is built on the side of a cliff. There is no dirt, only rock, and gravel. I had gone down to grab a hose and pull it around the side of the house. Mission accomplished...no problem. Then as I was walking back around the house, I stupidly stepped on a mound of chat, and the shit all flew out from under my feet. Of course, I fell. I fell downhill. I banged the shit out of my knees, both hands, and my head. Good thing my melon is hard. Damn. I cried.... Of course, my wonderful, kind, loving husband heard the commotion and leaned out over the rail to ask if I was ok. Bastard! He did manage to keep a straight face until I got back on the deck. He didn't actually start laughing till I told him I'd hit my head. He is still laughing... We are not amused. I hate Grand Lake. We have to go back tomorrow.....damn.