Beach

Here is a photo my sister took when she and her hubby and dog went to the Oregon beach near Astoria, OR for their 30 Anniversary.
Happy Anniversary!!!!

Castle

This is a really nice photo that my sister took when she and my niece went to Disney World over Christmas. My niece was promised the trip when she graduated from from college which in her case is acutully a univeristy. They went in December rather than in the summer when it is so hot in Florida.

Cookie Time

Haven't been doing much with the horses other than feeding and water. But the past couple of days I have been spoiling them to getting cookies and peppermints. Star loves peppermint candy so does Sundance, and Stormy. Nita and Trave refuse to eat them, but will really beg for horse cookies which all the horses and ponies love. Horse candy is called desert cubes at the feedstore where I buy them. They are special treats for horses made out of grain and molasses and come in a 50 pound bag. You can get all kinds of special treats for horses - apple treats, carrot treats, and others usually in small containers that wouldn't last one round of treats for my begging bunch of muchers. But the desert cubes I buy seem to be the least expensive and I know the horses love them. Of course my horses love real carrots and apples too. I make sure to cut them in small chunks so there is no chance they can choke on them. Apples especially are easy for a horse to choke on and even more so for the ponies. I cut them in slices with the core removed as I have heard that the seeds can be poison. Don't know how true it is but no point in taking a chance on it. No since in taking chances with the carrots either. Stormy, the mini has a really small mouth in comparision to the big horses and needs small bits.
Treats are good but now they are getting the idea that they grow in my hands and pockets and they start searching for treats as soon as they see me while making little begging noises. Sometimes you would think that they never get fed the way they act. Yeah my horses and ponies are becoming good actor trying to convince me they didn't already have a handfull of cookies just minutes before. I'm not fooled but I am a sucker and give out more.

Spring? or Winter?

It has been so nice the past couple of days, and has felt more like April than January. So is it spring or winter? Was in the 50's the past couple of days and only down to about 30 at night. Just enough for a skim of ice on the horse water buckets. It's perfect weather except just not quite warm enough to green things up. And, really, I don't want the trees to leaf out even though they are thinking about it, 'cause I am sure it will get cold again.
But this touch of spring has made me feel like spring cleaning so have dug into every corner and crevice trying to eradicate all of the dust, cob webs, surplus dog and cat hair, and those stray pieces of dog food that seem to find their way under all the furniture. I pulled out all the pieces of furniture in the living room and kitchen and cleaned under, over, around and through them. Took of sofa and chair covers and washed them and took down curtains and washed them.
Now I'm off to do the bedrooms.
Unless I decide to take a day off and play with the ponies.

Tooth

My tooth or what is left of it doesn't hurt near as bad today. Almost off the drugs. Only really hurts when air goes across it. worst part is that I can't get an appointment with another dentist to finish removing it for a couple of weeks. Will just have to remember not to chew on that side and not to clinch my jaw or grind my teeth.

Dentist

When to the dentist today. He numbed my mouth, removed the cap on the offending tooth, that had already had the root canel 10 years ago, then removed a broken piece of tooth. He said the tooth was broken and couldn't be saved. But he suggested I have the rest taken out by a oral surgen because it was to broken off to pull. So I am home and still have some pain but not as bad. Will make an appointment with a oral surgen tomorrow.

It is my Tooth

After spending almost a month telling myself that the dentist is right, that I do have a bad case of TMJ, I have come to the realization it really is a tooth problem. On Friday evening the cap came loose on the tooth that had been hurting all this time. It is a tooth that had had a root canel done on it about 10 years ago, and then had a cap put on it. Now I can wiggle the cap with my tounge and fingers and there is a gap between the tooth and cap that the bristles of my toothbrush get in and make it really hurt. And when I say hurt I mean hurt. I have been taking heavy duty pain killers all weekend to keep it under control so I don't start screaming. Thankfully we still had some from when we needed some last time someone was in the hospital.
Needless to say I will be calling the dentist first thing tomorrow morning.
If I can handle it that long. Guess I will have to as there isn't any kind of urgent care for dental problems.

TMJ

I had to go to the dentist right before Christmas as I thought I had an abscessed tooth. Thankfully I didn't. But I did and still do have a bad problem. I have TMJ. TMJ is the abbreviation for a long word that means 'pain in the jaw'. I have had TMJ in my right jaw for about 6 years that I know of. My jaw pops when I open it wide and close it. And even worse it will sometimes lock up. I mean it locks to where I can't even get it open. And it usually does this when I have a bite of something in my mouth. It's not fun. When it locks it is painful and takes several minutes of my messaging my jaw to make it open. There have been times when I was terrified it wouldn't relax so that I could open it and spit out or swallow what ever I was chewing. But usually if I am careful there isn't a problem. That was on the left side. I didn't even realize that I had TMJ in my right jaw, until the denest told me I did. And he says it is from grinding my teeth in my sleep. Also from clenching my jaw. I knew I did a lot of clenching my jaw and it was making my mouth ache a bit, but this is a horrible pain like I have a really bad tooth. He said there is nothing wrong with my teeth, according to the xrays he took, but he said my teeth show lots of sign that I grind them in my sleep. He said most people don't know if they grind there teeth in their sleep. Like snoring you can't tell because your asleep. Unlike snoring he said that someone else in the same room may not hear you grinding your teeth.
I take lots of pain killers for other pains like my scolorous in my back, foot pain, and sciatia in my hips and legs, and for my migranes. This pain in my jaw was like having a migrane in my jaw and, like migranes, the pain killers don't seem to do much good.
I looked this problem up on the internet at www.webmd.com and found it is very common. It seems it is caused by stress more than anything else. There doesn't seem to be any way to stop it except by stopping the stress. Ha Ha. It this life, I don't think so. You have to learn to not clinch your jaw and not grind your teeth when sleeping. There is some sort of devise you can sleep in that can help with that. The dentist said about $300 dollars.
More Stress.
So for now I am taking more pain killers and trying not to clinch my jaw, which I have descovered I do even when I am doing simple, mundane things like washing dishes, taking a shower, or playing with the cats, dogs, and horses.
I have to figure out how to stop some of the stress.
I'm not laughing. It hurts my jaw.

Brandlady.com

I have found a new website that I like. It is called Brandlady. and the link is www.brandlady.com
It is a online woman's magazine. It is still very new and just getting started, but looks like it might have some good articles. I really like the one on orchids under the Home & Garden section. They are looking for new writers, too, for those of you interested in writing for free. That seems to mean most of bloggers.

Midnight Walk

Well it was almost midnight when we went for our walk. We normally go out about 11pm for the dogs last walk before bedtime and to check on the horses one last time. Tonight lee decided to stay in, so it was just me and the dogs, Nikki, Codee, and Tuffee. We had about 2 inches of snow at about noon today. There is still a good cloud cover but not any moisture coming down. And not much wind at the moment. It was really still out there, the kind of weather that makes it so that you can hear every little sound.
I could hear a child fussing in a house a couple of hundred yards away. I heard a car door shut a good block away. A pickup going west on the nearest paved road sounded as if it was right beside us.
Snow crunched and squeaked under my feet. Star pony snorted, a thud in Sonny's stall sounded as if he had pushed his feeder against the wooden wall. Codee startled everyone with a loud bark at the moon. My voice seemed overly loud as well when I told her to hush. I squeaked the snow some more as I looked in all the heated water buckets to see if any needed additional water in them for the night. There was a soft, low whinny from my mini horse, Stormy. I also took a look at the 3 little piles of alfalfa hay I had left out near the corner of the shed where the cottontail rabbits go in and out under it. No it didn't look like they had eaten any. We had seen a rabbit out in the snow earlier that day. There are way to many rabbits around here but I still can't help but put out a bit of hay for them when it is really cold and wet. The thermometer read 25 degrees when I came out.
I looked up at the moon which was hazy with the clouds over it. I had seen a planet shining real bright right under it a few nights ago but couldn't see it tonight. Nor could I see any stars.
As I watched the moon a coyote yipped nearby. The neighbors dog answered it. Then all was quiet, so very, very quiet. As I listened for any sound I faintly heard way, way off the whistle of a train as it followed the railroad tracks that run near to the Rio Grande River as it winds and twists through nearby Albuquerque, and the smaller communities of Corrales, and Alameda. As I listen it whistles again a bit louder.
It seems odd or just weird that I can hear the train that I know is at least 10 miles away from where I live. Normally I can't. Normally there is just to much noise. I breath a big sigh taking in a lung full of the moist, night air that has changed the way the sounds are tonight.
The breeze picks up and cuts right though the 2 pairs of sweat pants I have on, and even through my heavy jacket and gloves.
Time to go in.

Yard Work

I have another goal for this year. To clean up the yard. That doesn't sound to daunting until you realize I have at least a half acre of 'yard' that needs a lot of tender loving care. We started today. Put about 6 wheelbarrow loads of horse manure on the garden area so it can be working down to get ready to fertilize the tomatoes and all the rest of the veggies this summer.
Next we dug about a couple of hundred iris rhizomes from around 2 of the redbud trees. I put a few iris around each of 3 redbuds, an ash, a lilac, a vitex, and a catalpa when we first planted the trees. The iris multiplied, and grew, and grew, and more and more grew around the trees. The trees have not done as well as the cherries, apples, cottonwoods, and pears we put out without iris around them. Now the iris are trying to choke out the trees. So the iris had to go. It was quite a job digging them out. Many of the rhizomes were sliced into by the shovel but it was the only way. I am sure a lot of the iris won't bloom or even survive when I replant them in a bed special only for iris. But the trees will appreciate all the trouble we are going to to rid them of the strangling horde of iris.
there is lots more work to do other than the iris. All the container pots are asking for new homes, or at least I have decided they need new homes in a different part of the yard. The roses need drastic pruning as well as several of the trees when the right time comes for pruning.
And of course there are the a few dried up tumbleweeds that never made it to the burning barrel last fall along with some of the other weed.
I would like to build a few trellis for growing morning glories, and cucumbers.
I wonder if the work will ever get done.

Bull Riding 2009

Tired of football? Try watching bull riding for a change. The 2009 season starts tonight. There isn't all that 'team' stuff when watching bull riding. It is one rider against one bull for 8 seconds. It's the best sport to watch as there is always action. For more information watch an event on Versus or NBC or go to www.pbrnow.com

Goal for the Year

I don't normally do the New Years Resolution thing, but this year I have set myself a goal. I would like to dig out all the stuff that my mom and her mom, my dad and any other relatives have left me that are packed in boxes. I want to make a brief note of each item, and take a photo of it. That way I will know what I have without having to go into each and every box to see if I have what I think I have. That way if there is something valuable maybe I can find an estimate of it's value somewhere on the internet. That way if I want to give something to my son, or my sisters kids I will know where to find it. By organizing things a bit better if I hear of something gaining value I can check a list on my computer to see if I have such a thing. But I am dreaming when it comes to thinking that there might be something of value in all that junk. My family has always been a bunch of packrats - keeping everything that they like and a lot that they didn't like just thought it was something that should be kept. As of this writing I have not found anything that is worth trying to find a way to sell it. Most of it is collectible junk. Would someone please tell me what you do with 100 years of collectible junk other than keep it packed in boxes.