Wonderful weekend

Well I'm back from my rides. I had a wonderful weekend. Saturday we all got together and had a "fun ride" which turned into a really great training opportunity for Dream. The first big thing we had to do was cross the river. That was quite interesting. Dream will go across water, but this water was deeper than we normally have in my area and much wider. The river was about 50-75 ft wide I'm guessing and had quite a strong current. Dream at first didn't want to go in, but finally took a major LEAP!! She then tried to gallop across the river, but after a couple strides she realized that it was to much work. So she settled down into a walk.  The rest of the ride was just a bunch of hill work and wonderful views until the last water crossing at the end to get back to camp. Dream did great on the second water crossing going home. I didn't get any photos I completely forgot my camera I'm hoping some of my friends send me a few photos of the rides.

(And just after I posted this, my friend Cindy R. sent me this photo of Dream and I just before we headed out for the competition. )

 Sunday was the competition and we had to go back across the water crossing as the very first obstacle. Dream did much better then since she'd already seen it the day before. I've already forgotten what order they all came in, but all the obstacles were pretty neat and all natural.  We were judged on going downhill, Backing up a slight incline, going through a natural tunnel, going into a "cave" and standing still, and stepping or jumping off a drop down.  The tunnel was really neat because it was literally "carved" out of a thicket of trees.  They cut the tunnel so that you could see the other side, but you were completely covered sides and top by tree limbs. The "cave" wasn't a full cave but more like a small box canyon. It was fairly narrow and a dead end. There wasn't a roof to the cave but Dream didn't want to go in. That was the only obstacle she didn't complete on this ride.  The step down was about a 2 ft drop off basically a mini cliff. It would be similar to a horse walking out of the horse trailer or maybe just slightly taller.   And finally the way back to camp presented us with the last river crossing headed back home. I think Dream got a lot of good water crossing training between the last two ACTHA rides and my fun ride. Dream and I have crossed the Rio Grande 6 times in the past month.  We will be headed out to one more ACTHA ride next weekend and then we have 4 weeks of being home before the next ACTHA ride in April. 

Check out the new pages

While I'm off for the weekend on one of my ACTHA rides, I thought I'd mention that I've posted new pages. One page for each of the horses. Just check out the tabs at the top of the page and when I get back, I'll update some of the photos and information on my horses. Have a good weekend.

Growing sprouts to feed the critters.

I've been doing some research on feeding the horses and the poultry (especially the ducks and geese) sprouted grains. The websites are calling it "fodder" but it is really just different grains sprouted into grasses. You can use barley, wheat, oats, and many other grains or a combination of some or all of them. I'm starting my experiment on a small scale to make some sprouted grasses for the ducks and geese. I've purchased some sprouting trays. As soon as those come in I'm going to start growing some fodder for the poultry and I'll report back on how that's going.  If you want to read more about growing your own "sprouts" for your critters, you might be interested in some of the following web links.

Green Feed for your horses

Livestock Fodder Shed

There is even this neat youtube video from a poultry farmer working with a system for his chickens.  The system he's using is one that I'm thinking about purchasing if my cheapo experimental system works out for me. 

Poultry Farmer Video

I'd still have to buy some of my hay for the horses, but the chickens and other poultry could live exclusively on the fodder as they don't require long stem dry matter to aid in digestion. It appears that the fodder systems have been in use in other parts of the world for a while now. Australia and the middle east each have documented use of this type of feed system for 2 to 3 years now. The benefits of the system is that you can provide fresh feed to your animals all year round. the downside is you need a place that is warm enough to grow the fodder all year round. I'm currently working on getting a green house so hopefully I'll be able to make this whole thing work.

Spring is coming!

So I went out to the garden on Sunday and checked out what needed to be done before spring creeps up on me. I found this.

These are my parsnips that are starting to re-sprout. That means I needed to dig up the parsnips because I don't want them growing and reseeding this year.  So I got busy and dug and dug and ended up with this.

That is a box with 20 LBS of parsnips. So I'm now busy cleaning and scrubbing and preparing to freeze a LOT of parsnips.  We already had our first meal last night with wonderful maple roasted parsnips. I've also got a nice parsnip bread recipe that I want to try.

In addition to checking out the garden, I decided to try a few milk jug mini green house starts. I want to see how they work out so I only set out 4 at the moment.  

Sunday's weather was wonderful, but I was still to sick to feel like riding. I ended up lunging Dream for a little while just to get her back into shape for the coming ride season. 

Sunday Morning Chow line

Bye Bye Facebook

Well while everyone else is busy being hooked up to Facebook I decided to completely deactivate my account. I hate the new Facebook timeline profile and instead of just complaining like most people, I did something about it. I refuse to keep a profile on Facebook as long as that timeline profile is in effect. If more people who complain would actually do something about it then Facebook would get the message. Or I could just be sitting out here in lala land while every one else connects on Facebook. My opinion is that I'm always the independent sort so I'll be independent out here alone if that's what it takes.

Random Stuff

Well I've been home sick for the past three days so when I've actually felt like being up and moving around I've been sitting quietly on the couch working on some crochet projects. I'm making a couple of blankets one for human use in my horse trailer and one for pet use on a dog bed if Catastropy the cat doesn't steal it first. 

This blanket is the one I'm going to put in my horse trailer when it's finished. 

And this is going to be the dog blanket

Here is Buddy and Jazzy kissing up trying to show how good buddies they can be. 

now here they are patiently waiting for a treat.

And the Castastrophy watching with disgust as the dogs kiss up to get special treats. 

Now I'm off to the store to try and find a different cold medication that will help clear up my stuffy head and hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow.

ACTHA ride

Well Keith and I and our horses Dream and Ladybug all just got back from our ACTHA ride this weekend. This is the second ride that Dream and I have been to this month, but Keith and Bug haven't been on the trails since about November. The first ride was in Socorro last Sunday and the second was in T or C this President's day weekend. 

The ride camp this weekend was at the Caballo State Park and was hands down the BEST camp site EVER. I mean who wouldn't want easy access to water faucets, Electric hookups for the vast majority of the participants, flush toilets AND access to showers! I know it sounds silly, but it's pretty much luxury camping. I'm so happy I got to use my horse trailer heater/AC for the very first time in the year I've owned the trailer. I'm also really happy my heater works so well.  I got a generator as a Christmas present so the next ride I go on I'll be able to use it also to run my heater.  

Here we are at the river crossing

And then again at the crossing the bridge obstacle.

What a GREAT weekend!

Doggie Chews

Jazzy and Buddy got a new bag of treats recently called CET Chews.  The chews are marketed for use in times when you can't brush your dog's teeth. Since both Jazzy and Buddy were rescued strays, they don't like getting their teeth brushed so we needed to try something different.  We got a big bag of the CET Chews for them to test out. We haven't had the chews long enough to test out their complete benefits yet, but Jazzy and Buddy certainly look forward to their new daily treat. 

The treats are coated with a couple enzymes that are supposed to help break up the plaque on your dog's teeth. The texture of the chew is rough enough to help brush or push the plaque off the teeth.  I got the size for large dogs (26 lbs up to 50 lbs) and they are just right for Jazzy and Buddy. The chews are large enough to last for a while but not so large that Jazzy and Buddy can't finish chewing them up.

These chews are similar to plain rawhide, but seems to be easier to chew. Buddy doesn't normally like plain rawhide chews, but he munches down on these CET Chews. The chews are the right size for a good daily treat and both the dogs really like them.  I think they will be a good addition to Jazzy and Buddy's list of favorite dog treats. 

The Appaloosa Horse and it's registry problems

Seriously for those of you who don't have Appaloosas, you might not want to bother reading this. I love my Appaloosas but honestly I'm totally sick of the main registry for Appaloosas. Over the past few years I'm sure some of you have seen my posts about different issues that have come up. 
Things like giving a registration status to a foal who's sire was a registered paint in Violation of the Breeding rule "No paint or pinto breeding" and the issue of allowing a person suspended from two other associations for abuse become an ApHC member and ride in the the World show. Those may seem like some pretty major issues but both were just swept under the rug. Now they have one more seriously major issue that also violates their own bylaws. Last fall, The ApHC held an election for the Board of Directors. The election process was completely ILLEGAL yet complaints from membership were also ignored.
Some of the complaints include the following:
1. First of all the election was held 100% electronically in violation of the rules in the hand book that state each member must be MAILED a ballot.  We were supposed to vote in the bylaw change with this vote, but as written, the bylaw still said a paper ballot must be mailed.
2. The election was supposed to be conducted and results compiled by a third party. The ApHC contends that the software program used to calculates the votes counts as a third party. All the Data and results were pulled out by members of the ApHC staff instead of being handed over from a third party company.
3. Individuals were supposed to be notified by e-mail and regular mail on how to vote. Problem is that some people didn't even get that information until AFTER the vote was closed. 
4. The rules for the vote stated that the voting would end at midnight on October 20th. They also stated 12AM. Problem is they didn't specify WHICH midnight/ 12 AM. So what happened is that the ApHC closed the vote at 00:00 am on the morning of October 20th while a large number of people were trying to vote because they thought it was supposed to be midnight 24:00 at the end of the day on the 20th. The ApHC refused to disclose which "midnight" they were referring to and they used ambiguous language that confused many of their own members.

http://www.nist.gov/pml/div688/times.cfm
Is midnight the end of a day or the beginning of a day?
When someone refers to “midnight tonight” or “midnight last night” the reference of time is obvious. However, if a date/time is referred to as “at midnight on Friday, October 20th” the intention could be either midnight the beginning of the day or midnight at the end of the day.
To avoid ambiguity, specification of an event as occurring on a particular day at 11:59 p.m. or 12:01 a.m. is a good idea, especially legal documents such as contracts and insurance policies. Another option would be to use 24-hour clock, using the designation of 0000 to refer to midnight at the beginning of a given day (or date) and 2400 to designate the end of a given day (or date).

One interesting thing to note is that the ApHC had more than 15,000 total members at the time of the vote. The total votes cast were less than 1000 in number. The most sickening thing of all is that some of the members actually think that the vote is legal and that anyone who didn't vote was at fault. Individuals couldn't vote because they didn't get the information through no fault of their own. Individuals couldn't vote because the ApHC didn't appropriate disclose what time the vote was supposed to close.

I decided to not renew my membership with the ApHC over this because I cannot support a club who is so unethical that they can't follow their own bylaws.