First milestone reached

Calendar mom and daughter (with no make-up).  Bella with her new halter on.

Today son put the halter on Bella. She's an amazing filly. She got slightly annoyed when he was having trouble with the buckle, but other than that she was easy. It's his first milestone reached. It's her first milestone reached. They say you must teach a horse to be well mannered or they're dangerous. Also they say, if a horse does not mind you well when you're on the ground they'll be as bad or worse when you're in the saddle.

We have to get our:

• Goals
• Objectives
• Milestones
• Strategy

worked out. I'm only up to learning how horses think at this point.  I think that goes under strategy.  I have to work out all the rest. We'll work it out together because son started a ledger to track everything from purchases to time spent with Bella to milestones attained.  He will use it for 4-H I think.  Isn't it great getting a free horse for a gift?  In five days we've spent $251.82.  Didn't even try very hard either.

I'm working on our calendar at Shutterfly, but my connection is so slow I'm going to have to abandon the effort for tonight.  Tomorrow we go to Cruces for dermatology appointments.  I have a small little bump on my nose that has to go.  At first I thought it was a zit, but it's not.  Why do these things start happening when you're 50 years old.  Whazz up?   Today for instance - I reach down to pull up my wrinkled socks, but I found out I wasn't wearing socks!

What a great day.  It was a great day today.  Tomorrow we will attach the lead (the rope) to her halter and test that out.  I have to read up on how to properly lead a horse.

Hay, sniffs, and plans

School seemed long! We both got drowsy at about 2:00pm, but we forged ahead and were glad when 3:00pm arrived. It was frightfully cold and I think the heaters made us warm and sleepy.

Son dogsat one of his favorite dogs for the first time and the owners paid him with two baseball caps (which he collects). He really expected and would have preferred cash and I don't know why the people didn't ask him if he'd rather have caps than money. If they ask him for his services again he's going to specify cash payment only. Odd. And he was disappointed.

Bella! Bella, her mum, and the brown filly which the kids are calling "Runs So Fast," all three came to greet me today. I was exceedingly pleased. I expected they might ignore me since I never give them treats. They are as curious as children. I could barely rake at first because they all three were sniffing and checking out what I was doing. I don't want three horses around me at once, so I retreated to the shelter and petted them one at a time. I am very cautious. Accidents seem to happen so fast.

Bella, I think maybe she was putting her lips on me too much today. It's normal foal behavior I think. In fact I cannot tell if she's just sniffing a lot, but you have to not let them put their lips on you or it can turn into nipping. I get worried when I see her lips start to move. I do not want a horse nip. No, no! I have a plan for tomorrow. I will say, "Shhhh" and flick her face to move it away. I read it in the advice forum and also was instructed to do it.

She let me pet her a lot today. I spent an hour out there. It was cold. Tomorrow I'm taking her harness to introduce it to her and let her sniff it, then rub it on her so she gets used to it and isn't afraid of it. If I can I'll put it on her. If not, I will try putting it on her another day. I'm in no rush.

We bought hay for her today. I saw them deliver it. A ton of hay doesn't look like as much as I thought it would. Eek!

Bella

I think we might name her Bella. Bella is Italian for beautiful and she is as beautiful as a little girl horse could be.

Our son greets the pastor on Sunday mornings and Pastor will every so often say very casually, "So do you have a horse yet?"

This morning during greeting time he went up to our pastor and told him we got a baby horse for Christmas. Pastor Mike said when he can ride her they will go riding together. I thought that was awful nice.

Today we did a lot of clean-up in the pasture and my husband helped. He did the things that you need a man to do like remove a piece of lumber that stuck out into the middle of the shelter. Now the horses have a nice, clear, open shelter to get into. We'll be raking and scooping up pooh for days. Should I say manure? Maybe cowgirls say manure! I'll google it and find out. I have to admit I do not mind the smell of manure. When we lived in California I'd have never stepped anywhere near a pile of manure and now I'm right in there scooping and wheel barrowing like nobody's business.

Here comes Monday. Tomorrow's a school day and son has a new project to begin - writing his first history paper. I'm curious to see what topic he chooses.

After school at 3:00pm I'm going to see the horses.

The most amazing day

 

I wished for a horse, but I didn't imagine we would ever have one. Horses are expensive. How can we have a horse?

But we have one! We have one. It was a Christmas gift from Leah the ranger who owns 16 horses. I can't believe she gave us one and it's Nike's baby. Nike is the horse our son showed at the fair last October. Nike has won champion in fairs across the state. She's a beauty.

It was a once-in-a-lifetime amazing gift. We were standing on the property where the two babies are. Leah had given us a box, but we were going to open it on Christmas. We got out of the truck and Leah said, "So did you open your present?" And she was excited. We said, "Noooo." She said, "Open it. Open it now!" Our son opened it and inside was a halter and lead. Purple. My favorite color. But I still stood with feet frozen, dazed, half suspecting, but dazed, because I couldn't connect the dots. She gave us a halter, but we don't have a horse. She had us open it not at home, but where the horses are. I just stood there mute. Utterly dumbfounded. You really have to explain things full out to old Lil. Next she said, "I'm giving you Nike's baby."

I was floored. I started to cry right off! I couldn't help it. It was so unexpected. I looked over and pointed, and said, "You're giving us Nike's baby?" I was incredulous. I think I might have been more excited than our son was. The baby is for both of us and for our whole family. She gave us the black and white Paint in the photo. The brown colt is one year old and our new baby girl horse is nine months old. One day she will look like her mama. . .

Bella will look like this, her mama, some day.

And I have been floating in heaven ever since. I can't believe we have our own horse that I can groom any time I want. Well, technically, I can't groom her yet. She's like a baby in diapers and she doesn't know anything. We first have to let her get used to us and it's only been two days, but it's going well. She's taken to our son and vice-versa. Today the colts literally ran to him when he entered the property. Do horse children recognize people children? I wonder.

How can we afford a horse? I don't know, but Leah checked it all out with my husband first and he gave his approval. He's very wise with our money. I can tell he's happy too. We are truly blessed to know the people that we know here. They are kind and helpful and I'd say extremely generous.

My husband did say one thing I didn't like and that is, "You know Liliana, this means we're going to have to get a house here." I said, "Whaaat!" Because since when does having a horse equal needing a house? That does not compute. I ask you, did the Native Americans need a house because they had horses. No! They lived in teepees. I could live in a teepee too if it had a microwave oven, hot water, electricity, and DSL. I digress.

Our son will get to go to a 4-H camp for a week in the summertime. He will learn so much about horses - I told him he'll have to teach me what he learns.

I'm so happy. All my heart is happiness. And I didn't even pray for a horse. I never asked the Lord for one because I thought it an impossibility. Silly me. I wanted a baby from my husband too, and I never asked God because I thought it was an impossibility too, and whattya know - his vasectomy from 17 years earlier reversed itself all by itself. Hehe!

Our son is a lean mean working machine. Together we did a lot of clean-up today and I'm sore from cleaning the shelter area, but I will sleep well and joyfully. Maybe I'll even snore!

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

It's beginning to feel

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas! Two more sleeps to go.

I had a very productive day. Our son got a job, in fact, two jobs, dog sitting, so he's a happy guy. The last Christmas gift I ordered came in today and that's good.

I have a new memorization done. This is it. Do you know who said it?

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

March 23, 1775, speech by whom? Extra points if you know where!

Someday I'm going to use it.

House cleaning

Ohmygosh. I've decided to add categories. I have photos and posts that are hopelessly lost amidst 1600+ journal entries and they need to be organized. Also, when I started blogging there were no categories. They didn't exist, so about two years worth have no category at all. It's like I cleaned a spot on the wall and now I have to scrub and clean the whole wall plus the other three walls, and then the ceiling.

It'll be good when I finish though. It's a worthy cause. I've wanted to get my photos put in order by state since forever, and finally I'm doing it.

My brain is numb from the repetition!

Julianne Jones, Christian author, my friend

I know a published author.  I don't mean self-published either.  I mean published by a real publishing house.  She had a book signing in New Zealand this week and lots of people came to get a signed copy.  I'm getting a signed one for myself too!

There's still time to get in the drawing for one free copy of To A Distant Land.  Go to Blog Giveaway on Julianne's cool personal blogging site, On Eagles' Wings, and leave a comment.  That's all you have to do to enter the drawing.  Such a deal!  There are ways to get your name in more than once if you want.  Check it out.  It's free, free, free!

Severe hackage

Shoot, I got hacked again.  Got myself fixed the first time and three days later, bam!, woke up this morning to the same syntax error.  Oooooh, an evil person got me.  I think there's some malicious code hidden in my WordPress.  I upgraded to the newest version which fixed it for about 20 minutes this afternoon and I got the error again. Seems to get worser and worser! Yipes.

I'm not yet wise enough to find the evil string, but I'm gonna delete the whole blog, reinstall a clean copy, change my password for WordPress and, this time, on my FTP program too.  Methinks that might help.  In the meantime I'm returning to the trustworthy Blogger blogworld.  I'm  fascinated that I got pegged so quickly. My theory is that I've done something dumb, in a noob way, and once I figure out what it is I'll be all better.

So I'm here till things settle down at the new place.  Mwah!