Clobbered in the Jaw by My Mare Maggie

Clobbered in the Jaw by My Mare Maggie

Now I know what it feels like to be clobbered in the jaw.

My son and I were inside the horse corral watching my husband Lonnie and my daughter Ashley, riding side by side or one behind the other at times, on two of our horses Rebel and Nitro. I was also taking a video of all of them. . It was such a beautiful day, the temperature was in the comfortable seventies and the sun was slowly going down.

Then Maggie, my mare, feeling a little left out would walk along with them without a rider. Well she was a little jealous of all the attention Rebel and Nitro were getting. A few minutes later, Ashley and Lonnie took the two horses they were on and left the corral to ride freely. I put my video camera down and walked up to the gate that my son Quentin had just opened and closed for them. I didn’t realize at first how upset Maggie was when the other two horses left the corral .I saw her run up to me and I fully expected her to stop when she reached me, but as I looked up, our faces met. Then she made a quick left turn and her nose smacked my jaw. My head had an unnatural chiropractic like twist. In a split second, my son Quentin yelled, “MOM, Jump over the gate, Maggie is going nuts!” I leapt up a five foot metal gate, and swung my legs over the top and jumped down in 3 seconds flat, so I wouldn’t get trampled on by a much stressed out, 900 pound mare that had turned around and was heading back towards my direction. Quentin was so impressed by how quickly I jumped the gate, and said, with a huge grin, “Mom that was a pretty fast jump for an old lady.” As I reflected back on the whole scenario, at what had just took place, I smiled, and said ”Thanks”. I guess this “not so young chick”, has acquired some pretty quick reflexes living, at the ranch, here in the country. I felt like a real country cowgirl, making that leap. OH noooooo, does this mean that this country living is growing on me?

Yep, I Met a Few of My Country Neighbors

Yep, I Met a Few of My Country Neighbors

YEP, I met a few of my country, 1/2 mile away, neighbors today.

 At 6:30 a.m. while sitting on my couch sipping my morning cup of coffee, a man in a van pulled in the driveway, I made a bee line into my bedroom to get a robe onto my scantily clothed body, (wearing only a t-shirt and underwear), before he could look in my windows without curtains.( Lonnie Buck, had said to me in the past, WHY do you need curtains, there is nobody close enough to see inside) Ahh, yeah, unless they pull into your driveway, get out of their car and knock on the door, to tell me my 3 HORSES are out and they are about a mile down the road.

 OMGosh, I said,"okkkk, thank you, by the way, where is Grove Rd?". He said "bout a mile down the road at the first corner ma'am, just thought I'd let you know". Instantly, I panicked because I am all alone again, Lonnie is at work, and Quentin isn't home. So I ran to my room to get dressed and in a full state of concentration on a plan to get them back home, I walked out o the door, into our closed in porch,

 looking down to put my shoes on, and I heard a voice of another man at the screen door, trying not to startle me, say "ahemm, morning." I jumped and looked up at a 6 foot man standing there, and said, "Horses out?" He said " Yep." OK, I said, Thanks.

 I ran to the horse trailer to get grain and I filled their bowls in hopes that they would simply mosey on back home, but that thought was dismissed. Then I grabbed a lead rope and jumped into my car to drive over to the horses that were indeed about a mile down the road. I just parked at the corner where all the other neighbors were gathered near my horses waiting for me to retrieve them from their planted fields, that they had helped themselves to eating.

 When I got out of the car, I called Maggie, my mare, over to me with a treat in my hand and she came over to me and I roped the lead around her neck because she didn't even have a harness on her head and proceeded to walk her back home. The other 2 horses sort of followed us but in a fashion of running around us, and back and forth down the road in a very disorderly way. I had to stop several times in order for Maggie not to run with the other two and it caused her to rear up in front of me trying to free herself, but I managed to still hang on and stay far enough away so I didn't get trampled on.

 I finally arrived back home with them and 2 of them willingly went into the corral and the other one, Rebel, whose name suits him, decided he would stay outside of the corral, so I bribed him with a treat in my hand while I stood inside the corral and he surrendered and walked back in with the others.

 NOW, I had to walk all the way back to my car, a mile away , and being that I was all sweaty, from the adventure, the horse flies were swarming around me, at this point, I had wished I had my long hair back in a "pony tail" to swing my head from side to side and swot them off of my face. I reached my car, jumped back in and drove home, all before 7:30 a.m. and the day has only begun, what is next?? ;(

Water Shut Off In The Electrical Box

Water Shut Off In The Electrical Box

Well,  today I have no running  water coming out of any faucet in this OLD farm house. I had water earlier this morning to make my coffee...thats good.

 As I was sitting in my room, at my computer desk working, I heard my son say "Mom, could you come in the kitchen?" in a very urgent tone. So, I rushed in to the kitchen and Quentin was standing next to the kitchen sink, with one hand on  the cold water handle of the faucet, with it fully turned to the open position. He was about to cook some rice on the stove which required water, and said, "Have you used the water today?" Yes, I said, and we both did a quick eye contact stare at each other that was quickly followed by the sound of gushing water coming from the basement.. At the same time we both ran to the basement door, opened it and lept down the stairs as quick as possible to see the absentee water from the kitchen,  all over the floor in the basement and witness it rushing out from a brown cylinder shaped container.I started raising my panic stricken voice and said,"Where's the water valve turn off handle?" Well when I saw Quentin reach above the brown cylinder container and opened the electrical panel box while saying that Lonnie had shown him where the shut off switch was. I excitedly say "NO, it cant be in there". But Quentin opened it, with his own intent, and didnt listen to me, as usual, but this time Im glad he didnt listen to me because he flipped a switch which turned the water off. Phew!!  

In the suburbs we don't keep our main water turn off valve in the ELECTRICAL BOX??? We keep it with the Plumbing !Thank God he was home this time! I contacted Lonnie at work and he asked serveral questions and determined that we will just have to wait until he gets home from work so he can assess the problem and repair it, before we have is running water coming out of the faucets. There goes my morning shower until this evening

Mouse in the Horse Grain

Mouse in the Horse Grain

Today, when I walked outside to feed our 3 horses their morning hay and grain, they came running over toward the pasture gate, and paced back and forth, neighing for attention to be fed. As I opened the door to the horse trailer, where we keep their grain in a large 30 gallon trash can, I reached in to grab their individual 3 cup containers. I SAW A MOUSE, running around the inside of the trash can as if it were in a circular, caged, circus type bike riding ball. Of course, I yelled and slammed the trailer door shut, ( nobody was home to replace me of the feeding duty) and tried to run away, but I couldn't because I was wearing my son's size 12 cowboy boots,( you know , I just slipped them on for temporarily walking out to feed them and back to the house.) I turned and looked at the horses and thought, "Sorry, no grain for you this morning", BUT they were making their neighing plea's for their grain treat and all standing in they spots to eat while looking at me with 3 sets of big brown eyes. So, this suburban girl, grit my teeth, turned around, opened the trailer door again and sheepishly peeked into the grain container. Yep, mouse still there! I reluctantly tipped the almost empty container toward the opened door and quickly stepped back, and watched the mouse, eewwww , jump into the grass/weeds outside the door. Once again thinking to myself, " What am I doing here, living in the country, feeding horses and dealing with mice????." Wishing we still had those 20 barn cats that were living here last year. This is sooo not me!! Then I filled their grain cups and walked over to the horses and poured the grain into their bowls. At least THEY are happy! Three out of four of us is not a bad statistic. Now I'm taking off to buy more horse grain and chicken feed .

Mouse in the Horse Grain

Mouse in the Horse Grain

Today, when I walked outside to feed our 3 horses their morning hay and grain, they came running over toward the pasture gate, and paced back and forth, neighing for attention to be fed. As I opened the door to the horse trailer, where we keep their grain in a large 30 gallon trash can, I reached in to grab their individual 3 cup containers. I SAW A MOUSE, running around the inside of the trash can as if it were in a circular, caged, circus type bike riding ball. Of course, I yelled and slammed the trailer door shut, ( nobody was home to replace me of the feeding duty) and tried to run away, but I couldn't because I was wearing my son's size 12 cowboy boots,( you know , I just slipped them on for temporarily walking out to feed them and back to the house.) I turned and looked at the horses and thought, "Sorry, no grain for you this morning", BUT they were making their neighing plea's for their grain treat and all standing in they spots to eat while looking at me with 3 sets of big brown eyes. So, this suburban girl, grit my teeth, turned around, opened the trailer door again and sheepishly peeked into the grain container. Yep, mouse still there! I reluctantly tipped the almost empty container toward the opened door and quickly stepped back, and watched the mouse, eewwww , jump into the grass/weeds outside the door. Once again thinking to myself, " What am I doing here, living in the country, feeding horses and dealing with mice????." Wishing we still had those 20 barn cats that were living here last year. This is sooo not me!! Then I filled their grain cups and walked over to the horses and poured the grain into their bowls. At least THEY are happy! Three out of four of us is not a bad statistic. Now I'm taking off to buy more horse grain and chicken feed .

When will I learn to get out of harm’s way?

When will I learn to get out of harm’s way?

It was such a beautiful, mild, mid 70’s kind of day.  Sasha and I walked outside to give the horses some oat bagels and carrots for a treat. We talked to them, stroked their coats and enjoying their company. As I was stroking Maggie’s coat, I was secretly thinking to myself, ”This country living is peaceful”, can’t get this in the suburbs”.

Meanwhile, in the background, Lonnie was staking the ground and connecting the roping to it, which he often does, to give the horses more fresh grass to eat. We call it the “Temporary Pasture”.  It was surrounding Sasha and I, leading to the gate in which Lonnie could be able to simply open it and the horses would walk out and into the fresh grass area to graze. Otherwise, like in the past, we would take the lead rope, hook it to their harness and walk them out to the temporary pasture that was too far out to connect to the gate. After we fed them the treats and enjoyed their company for a few minutes, we headed back toward the house, walking through the temporary pasture to get to that point.

Then in the not so far background I heard Lonnie say,”Ok, come on out” Sasha and I looked up at the same time, and Sasha panicked and yelled, ”MOM, LOOK! Because I was already looking, she meant, they are running in our direction, all three of them. They went from a walking mode to a stampeding mode in seconds flat, as if they were at the races and they just heard the starting gun shot. I tried to calm her down within the few seconds we had before they reached us and said, ”It’s ok, just move over, get out of their way”. Luckily we were next to a tree at that point and Sasha jumped behind the tree. A smart decision made quickly.

One horse, Rebel, ran to the right of the tree and the others,(all of them weighing over 900 pounds each), ran to the left of the tree, RIGHT WHERE I WAS STANDING! All I had time to do in those few seconds was to position myself into the center of the two horses running right in my direction, and pray that they didn’t knock me over and trample onto me. And at the same time, I naively thought, surely they will stop before they get to me. Maybe to see if I had any treats left to give them? But Noooo, THEY DID NOT STOP.  They did slightly separate in the attempt to go around me, but Maggie didn’t quite have enough room between the tree on the right side of her and me on the left side of her. So, the broad side of her body banged into me at full speed, and I was thrown over a few feet, while on the other side of me, Nitro swooshed past me at full speed but slightly veered off to his left just enough so as to not run into me. Unbelievably, I was still standing, but Maggie’s hoof clipped the back of my leg and cut it and in an instant a bruise swelled up and appeared under a cut. THANK GOD, it was a minor injury. It gave me shivers to think of what could have happened.

The odd thing is that about five more feet ahead of them, they ran up to the rope and made a dead stop. I was so shocked, that they stopped dead on for the rope, but not the two people that were just feeding them treats just minutes prior to their blast off run. Ya know, my thoughts were correct, you can’t get all this in the suburbs”. When will I learn to get out of harm’s way?

IS THIS REALLY HOW COWBOYS LIVE OUT HERE IN THE COUNTRY?

IS THIS REALLY HOW COWBOYS LIVE OUT HERE IN THE COUNTRY?

Let me see a show of hands if……… 1.Your Cowboy does NOT use soap when he washes his hands.

                                                               2. When your Cowboy shows his chivalry by killing a bug with his bare hands after you scream at the sight of one, BUT, then wipes it on the carpet, bedspread, or him instead of throwing it away.   :/

                                                               3. Does he look at you with a slightly tilted head and say,” WHAT FOR?” after you say,“ Oh My Gosh!! Aren’t you going to wash your hands after killing it?” Then his reply is, “Nahh, its ok”, he then proceeds to crawl into bed next to you. EWWW!

 Please go wash your hands WITH SOAP, then come to bed.

                                                                 4. Does your Cowboy come in the house after hand feeding the horses that have licked and drooled on his hands and then goes into the house and touches everything in the kitchen to get something to eat, WITHOUT washing his hands?

 Are you kidding me? “Please wash your hands, before touching any counter tops, or the refrigerator handle or any food in it…… WITH SOAP” and his response with the roll of his eyes is, “WHAT FOR?”

                                                                 5. Does your Cowboy bring in his travel mug when he gets home from work then set it on the counter top and tell you,” Don’t have to wash this, I washed it at work?” When I further investigated that statement and asked, ”Did you use SOAP when you washed it at work?” His response is, “WHAT FOR, I’m just going to use it again tomorrow.”

Yuck!  I put it right in the soapy dish water as I was washing other dishes. There it goes!

Is this really how Cowboys live out here in the country?  My Cowboy says I’m too germ conscious. I think the key word in that statement is “conscious,” and I am, about cleanliness.

Where I come from, back in the suburbs, we use SOAP with our water to wash everything! :)