Ecclesiastes 3......A time to pray

My heart is heavy.


I understand there is a time for everything, but I am not ready. I hate this aspect of horse ownership.


Do you know why I call her Boo? Because I don't even  KNOW what her name is. The people who dropped her off at my place left her when I was not there. No feeding plan. No background of any kind. Just a horse with really long feet who had obviously been through a lot in her lifetime. I don't even know how old she is. The vet estimates around 28-29. And the sweetest dispositioned horse I have ever known.


My precious Boo horse is having problems that can no longer be solved. It is time. This horse that someone abandoned at my place? They abandoned her because THEY did not want to make the decision I have to now make. But I cannot let her continue in pain. She has stopped eating normally and is losing weight. She cannot walk without pain. I know it is time.......everything in my horse experience tells me I am right.


Someone please explain that to my heart.


I love you Boo.

There are.....

There are days that make you glad you were born.


     There are things that make you glad you are here.


          There are people who make you wonder why in the heck you would ever think the 2 statements above.


What. A. CRAZY. Week!


I am SO glad I have a 2 day weekend coming up. Which would be Sunday and Monday since I am working tomorrow. But even with screaming patients, unhappy co-workers and REALLY long times in between paydays, today was beautiful.


It is not often that we get spring rains like this. Soft and gentle, steady and sweet and so, SO needed. And lucky for me, this rain is predicted to last through Monday.


When I left this morning for work all the horses were bucking and playing in their paddocks, loving this cooler weather.


I am so hoping that I will have time to work in the garden area this weekend. I am also hoping that I can figure a way to keep those stinkin' cute little ground squirrels out of my garden. Any ideas? Anybody?


Happy Friday, my friends..... I am hoping your weekend is beautiful!

I have a LOT of respect for those pioneer women.....

Today started out with a scare. I thought for sure that my heart would never make it through this day.

My beloved Houdini. I went down to feed before leaving for work and lo and behold, Houdini lay down when he saw food coming. Not at ALL a Houdini norm.

No gut sounds. Flying to get the banamine thinking for sure this was the end. But after banamine, oil, electrolytes and water, he is doing better. He is pooping and eating and gut sounds galore.

I have several thousand new gray hairs. My heart palpitations have stopped and I am breathing normally. I am not ready for him to leave me. Not now. Not when we have just embarked on this new adventure. I love that horse.

So here I am writing about such a scary thing and making decisions that have already been made. I never, EVER want to be in a position where I cannot take care of my horse when he needs help.

I thank God often. It is with a grateful heart that I have a good truck, a roof over my head, a place to keep my horses and someone to put in the pump for the water tank.

OMG. I swore I would never get into another water haul situation, but hello! Here I am. And somehow it is not as bad as when I was doing this in Colorado. Probably because it is not so flippin' cold I have snot sickles hanging from my nose.

But the klinker is, I thought the water system would be in place when I got here. No such luck. So after tracking down the fix it man, apparently I am getting that pump in here pretty quickly. You have no idea what it is like to have to dump a bucket of water down the toilet to flush it. Or heat water up on the stove and in the electric wok, dump it into an igloo cooler and use it for taking a bath. Or better yet, heating water to wash dishes.

YIKES!

I have a whole lot of respect for those pioneer women.

If it had been left up to me, we would still be back in Boston talking with funky accents.....

I am totally gobsmacked!

I was told by a friend today that it is TOTALLY because I am dealing with people from Kingman.
Her exact words were, and I quote,

"It is just Kingman people. Even if they have an education they are still stupid".

Now while I dislike making assumptions and lumping everyone into one group, I am beginning to think she is right!

SO glad to be out of here this weekend!

YAYNESS!!!

The Beginning Of The End

So tomorrow I finish packing the sewing room and loading all onto the trailer.

And then?

Wednesday I drive the trailer to the new house and begin to unpack all the boxes into various places. Kitchen stuff here, Sewing room stuff there. Books over there and garden tools over here. February marks the last month at the old rental house!

Do you ever wonder if you have made the right choice? This is the time when I cannot go back. Regardless of the doubts I have of my abilities, I have to move forward. I am excited. But I am also sad. And a little scared. In how you look at this situation I am either moving forward or taking a few steps back.

I have always felt that when you pray a prayer and all of a sudden things fall into place, that is God moving. And when you pray a prayer and in trying to move forward you find stumbling blocks, that is God protecting you from a wrong choice.

When I moved to Colorado the stumbling blocks were EVERYWHERE. A trip that should have taken 15 hours took 3 flippin' DAYS. When I made the decision to move back to Arizona, within a week, I had a job. I had a new home and all was clear.

The same with this little house and property. Said a prayer and it fell in my lap, so to speak.

Odd thing. In my devotions this morning from the book, Jesus Calling, by Sarah Young, the text said that when you feel overwhelmed or unsure to just call out His name. He is there.

I am so glad that I do not have to live my adventures alone. I am glad Jesus is there to help me when I stand before my Goliath. I am glad Jesus is there when He bids me to step out in the stormy waters to walk in faith.

And so I shall.

I should have known better......

These days you need CONTRACTS.

Such a dang shame, but the reality is? YOU NEED CONTRACTS. The days of a verbal agreement and a handshake no longer can be trusted.

It really is no big deal. Well actually it IS a big deal. But hey. Live and learn right?

I hired a guy with a backhoe to come out and level a spot for temporary pens until I could get the barn site leveled. He and his wife met me at the new place, looked over the spot, we talked about this job, talked about the barn leveling job for later, and he quoted me a price for the leveling of the temporary pens.

We agreed. He would start work on Wednesday. We shook hands and then on Monday, I got cash  and paid him, with his wife right there, paid him the money. He postponed the job for 2 days, came out on Friday and started the job. I gave him a ride home that night so his wife would not have to drive over and pick him up. Saturday, I picked him up and took him back to finish the job. He did and all was well. THAT was over a week ago.

Today he calls and wants more money because he did not charge me for?  DRIVING THE BACKHOE OVER. Really? A week later? Please. Legally I owe him NOTHING.

Will I pay him that money? Yes I will. Because he did a couple of extra things for me, but NOT for travel time.

Will I ever hire him again???  AB. SO. LUTE. LY. NOT!!!

And whomever I do hire? I want a WRITTEN contract. With a professional....not somebody who has his sign up and is not licensed. I might pay more, but at least I will not have stupid surprises like this guy sprung on me.

I won't make that mistake again!

Bittersweet

One of my all time favorite movies is the spoof on Pride and Prejudice called "Lost in Austen".

It is flippin' HYSTERICAL. And romantic. But there is one line, from Amanda, at the beginning of the movie that always rings true to me and it is this...

"It is a truth, generally acknowledged, that we are all longing to escape....I escape always to my favorite book. Pride and Prejudice."

I have to agree with her and I do love the book Pride and Prejudice as I am a huge Jane Austen fan. But when I want to escape? I escape to my favorite authoress....LaVyrle Spencer.

Oh how I love her books! My absolute favorite is "Bittersweet", followed closely by "Family Blessings".  These books are ones that I have read at least a hundred times. I could quote so much of them word for word and I know what happens each time I end a page and turn to the next. But they comfort me and I love them.

I just began Bittersweet again tonight. I packed all my other books and they are stashed away in the trailer waiting to make the trip to my new little home...but I could not pack that one. When I am blue, I read this book. When I am sad, I read this book. When I am happy, I read this book and when I am nostalgic, I read this book.

I have for years wanted to make a trip back to Wisconsin. My Daddy took my brother and I back to Crivitz, Wisconsin in 1968 to the old farm his Mother and Father began when they immigrated from Poland. Daddy said that Grandma and Grandpa were SO proud to become Americans that they would not allow their children to speak Polish in the home. They were AMERICANS and they would speak English as Americans were supposed to. (Times change, eh? Press ONE for English....)

I will never forget that trip. I loved Wisconsin. The green and the water. The hay fields and the woods. The lakes that stretch forever. Bittersweet brings so much of that back to me.

Crivitz is on the other side of the bay from the Door County peninsula....just a couple of hours drive from Fish Creek where the story of Bittersweet takes place. It would be so easy to just drive from one small town to another and I dream of doing this each and every time I read my favorite book.

Maggie and Eric have become such good friends to me and although I do not condone the way they get together, I rejoice when all is set right. I cry with Maggie, I agonize with Eric. I laugh with Brookie and I thrill when Maggie finds Harding House. Get the book. I know you will LOVE it!


I know I cannot make this trip this year because of the move to my new home, but next year.  NEXT YEAR in the fall I am going back!!!

Thorpe House Inn

Cana Island Lighthouse

Gills Rock, Wisconsin

Peninsula State Park

Chambers Island