This is Icky

Yesterday my horse kicked one of my boarders. She said she was just checking something on her own horses leg...

Hi. Would have written to you sooner but I think I have a cracked rib and I wasn't sure I could sit at the computer. Last night I went into the arena with Handy and Joey because I thought I saw a cut on Handy's back leg. Joey wouldn't let me near Handy at first and then I got him to move off. I turned to look at Handy and Joey came right up behind me. I turned around and motioned him off and he spun around and back kicked. He hit my left leg and I turned and he hit my right calf. I went down hard and he moved away. I knew I hadn't broken anything so I got up and drove home. That's when I took my jeans off and saw my leg split open. You know the rest. I am going to the doctor at three about the rib. Don't worry, I am comfortable and can take some sick days. I will talk to you soon.

I've known for a while now that hes getting mean but this takes the cake. I've talked about this with my trainer and we're going to work on his attitude. Asshole. FUCK.

But in other news:
I sold 2 loads of composted manure today for a total of $150 this week and have another scheduled for tomorrow morning. This money is going to go toward gas for the Mustang Parade in Woodburn, Oregon in 2 weeks and to get us to the LaMay car show in Tacoma in 3 weeks.

Other horse news:
I'll be taking my Pessoa Saddle and all its trimmings to Issaquah to maybe sell them tomorrow. I've had it for 18 years, its a damn nice saddle with a 100 year warranty. That's cool. I'm asking $1,000 for it and won't go less than $800 minimum. I paid $1600 for it. I will not let her talk me down any lower & I wont let her buy JUST the saddle as I have no use for the trimmings.

Injuries from horses

Got a text today, my horses kicked & knocked down one of the boarders. She's an older lady, already in pain from a surgery gone bad somehow. She's been frail and basically an invalid for the last year.
Anyway Joey hurt her when he knocked her down, then she found a slice on her leg & went to the hospital to get stitches.
We do not have insurance for this kind of thing and I'm sure in Washington State you can't sue for it either, you are supposed to expect horses to hurt you. But damn it all anyway.
I had Joey & her horse out in the arena together for the day because if I put her horse  out with the mares he is too studdy. At least with Joey he can run and play, and play they do, they rear up and strike & kick but never (ok, hardly ever) hurt each other.
I feel really bad but I'm also scared. I'm scared she's going to sue us and life as I know it could come to a crashing end.

In other news: There was a dead body found in the water at our dock today. Dude was in trouble for child porn, he did the right thing.

In other news: We have 5 people who want compost. I've been selling it for $50 per truck load and some of it is damn nice shit. 2 years old & not a turd to be seen, nice black dirt now.

Dieting does suck

My diet is going well, I'm down 11 lbs right now, up from my lowest of 144.2 but it WILL go down again. I'm still getting the supplements figured out, have just started a daily B12 gummie, but today was a great day, I only felt hungry 1 time and that was an hour after my normal noon lunchtime. And then I didn't even eat my fruit, totally forgot about it.

Breakfast is as much coffee or tea as we want, with Truvia and up to 1 tblsp milk (daily total of milk).

beans, mushrooms, cuke, strawberries, 100 grams ground beef.

For lunch and dinner we can have 1 serving fruit, 1 serving veggie and 100 grams protein + 2 bread sticks. We don't eat the breadsticks every time and you can have a whole snall apple or orange.

It looks like more if you use a small plate.

My heaviest EVER was 157 lbs and I am now at 145 but I started the diet at 156.2 (second day while still carb loading). If I can keep this up, the not feeling hungry, I will be doing great.

Veggies for both of us before I sautéed them
We can have up to 1 tblsp olive oil

Lan has already lost over 20 lbs and he is looking thinner already and he feels good too. He is taking less supplements than me but you do what works for you.

Fish portions are exactly the right size

 My diet goal is to get down to 130. I hope to do it in 1 go around but if I have to do a 6 week maintenance & then another 20 days on the supplements then so be it. I can do this.

 
I had to work today 10-6 so was very pleasantly surprised when Sarah called to tell me she had cleaned the barn for me. That's just wonderful. It gives me more time to plan how I'll fix dinner. There are only so many variations on how to fix so few items.

I absolutely love asparagus and have never fixed it so many times
in one month before.

Before

Week 2, down 10 lbs

Property

We are looking for a new property to purchase that has a barn, garage, at least 5 acres and a house to live in. But Im thinking Id like the house to come first this time, not as an after thought. Here is one we talked about but its in Pierce County, they don't allow outdoor fires and are sticklers for cutting trees down. But this place is right next to Alpine Tree Forest, I wouldn't have to ride the road to get to it or only 1/4 mile on dirt roads.

I know Id have at least 1 summer time boarder wanting to use the Alpine trails and I could ride forever. No arena though and I don't remember if there is still a round pen or not.
The people are hoarders, the house could be totally trashed inside for all I know and they DO have at least 6 dogs, maybe 7. Indoors. Running rampant.

If we do move we're preapproved for about 300k but we don't want to go that high.

More Tears Today

For whatever reason, Linda and I agreed to meet for tea at 8:10am down at my favorite coffee shop. I'm usually not even out of bed at that time so it was quite an accomplishment. So we're sitting there in my nice warm car, sipping tea and we see a lady finishing off her run. Linda thinks its Beverly.

We watch for a couple minutes, comment on her beautiful legs and then Linda says she thinks Beverly isn't having such a great day, looks like tears. So we called her over.

Time to get out and distribute hugs and encouragement.

Poor Beverly was having a BAD TRAINING DAY.  She wasn't happy at all and had huge tears. It was one of those WHY THE HELL AM I OUT HERE DOING THIS SHIT? kind of days. I was there last year, I had some good days but I had a lot of awful days too. its hard to train alone in the rain day after day and no one else even cares. Or it seems like no one else even cares.

I'm going to start collecting things for her to help her in her training. I don't know what, maybe a few Bonk-Breakers or GU's or some Perform or Perpetuam. Maybe some energy beans. She needs to know shes not alone.

Linda surprised me & gave me a pair of cute socks, they have my name on them!

In horse news, I spoke to a lady who lives on Bainbridge Island about her leasing Sunshower. She's going to come out Thursday at 6pm to see her. I'll ask her to come out a second time too so Sunshower can get to know them a BIT before I let her go and I'll definitely go out and see her place beforehand. I have checked out her place online and it's not a bad place but I want to see it in action. The lady says she has some younger girl 'interns' working in exchange for lessons and some of those will be on Sunshower so I want to make sure they can at least ride a little.

I wanted to see how Sunshower would react to being ridden today and she tried her little crow hopping BS with me so I got after her but not bad, mostly just yelled at her and made her work a bit harder. I concentrated on holding my thumbs up and relaxing and she was doing her nice slow trot, perfect for sitting. She wasn't happy but it was dinner time and she had only been eating for half hour. Oh well, I'm boss.

I'm going to try to ride again tomorrow too so when Thursday rolls around she's not a silly in heat whore.

I'm still looking for an arab gelding.

New Stuff

I keep finding more and more new cycling things I just gotta have, like this awesome

Washington State Ferries jersey.

Bike Tech had them 2 weeks ago for $79.99 but I found them at the Seattle Bike Expo last weekend and when I told the lady selling them that I work for the ferries, she sold me one for $60.

I was all over that!

 

It comes in green also but the blue spoke to me.

When we went back to Bike Tech today they were sold out of the blues so I'm really happy that I bought the one I did get.

Yay me!

Rain, Rain, Go Away

I live in Western Washington where rain is normal but if you don't know the facts, places in New York get more rain than we do. But last night is must have rained a lot while I was sleeping because when I left for work at 8:20am our yard was an inch deep in standing water.

That's not normal. Our land is all sand and it usually drains quite well, unless its been either snowing & melting or a HEAVY rain. I'm blessed with a natural sand arena that drains extremely well so even though its not covered at least its not soaked all winter long.

When I got to work my boss was standing in a light rain directing traffic onto the boat and I didn't want to get soaked myself so as soon as I could I put on my rain gear. Then it stopped raining, the sun came out & it dried up. it was still windy and damp from waves while landing boats but the parking lot was dry. The air was about 55* so it was beautiful for all of my work day.

My friend Sarah was out on her pony & she got rained on, all soaking wet. But its good mental training for her & Renata.

I'm so thankful that I FINISHED Ironman CDA last June so I didn't have to train in this weather again this year.