Leaving for Oregon tomorrow!!

I am leaving tomorrow for Oregon for about 12 days or so. My aunt from Minnesota is going back for a wedding and asked if I would like to ride along. I am soooooooooo very excited to see those I love:) I only have a week in Oregon so it will be busy, busy, busy to see everyone I want to see. I can't wait to see all the babies that were born while I was there last year, I am sure they are all so big by now:)

I will have lots of pictures and things to blog about when I return I am sure:) I will miss y'all have a great couple of weeks!

Really TORN!!!!! What should I do???

OK so maybe some of you have read my previous posts about my horses that I gave up. It has been about a year and a half ago and still everyday I think about it and am sad. I loved them both VERY much but especially Shar, she was my baby!!! I did everything with her...rodeo, medieval horse back fighting, parades, etc. etc. She has always been the best horse. I miss her everyday. But it was hard for her from the time we moved to Nebraska as she was 19 at the time and the extreme cold winters were hard on her. But last year after fighting with the cancer and such all the bills were stacking up and I was spending money I needed for medication to take care of my horses and then we had to move to the new ranch since we were about to loose our house. But when we moved to the new ranch the horses had to be kept in a pasture over two miles from the house and with no shelter and the first night there they tore themselves to bits on the barbed wire even though we walked a lot of the 400 acre fence line with them before we let them go. It broke my heart so bad to see them so bad off and I knew thatShar would not do well through a harsh sandhills winter with no shelter so I made the decision to send them to a rescue facility that let kids ride them. It broke me into a million pieces!!! But I did finally feel like they were in a better place that had better facilities to take care of them and then chief did get adopted out so that was good.

Ok here is my what should I do??? I just got an email from the rescue and they are wanting to find Shar a home as she has to be on a special diet to keep weight on and that keeps her farther from the herd so the kids don't pick her to ride as much. So they would like to know if I would want to take her back. Part of me of course screams yes I want my baby back, but the other parts of me are sooooooo scared??? For one it is a long drive back to Lincoln to get her, she is 23 now and I am not sure I want to have her here for the winters, I am not sure we are in a position to afford to be able to take care of all the emergency's that may occur? I am not sure how much longer she will be ride able, and sooo on. Maybe also It hurt sooooo bad to give her up the first time I don't want to have to do it a second time if it doesn't work out or if she passes away. And with ranch life we really never know when we may have to move for sure and then finding a place for lots of horses is hard. But I have been dieing to get to ride again and been wanting to get another horse, but it would have to be exactly the right horse, which is Shar but about 20 years younger:)

I just really don't know what to do and I want to make a good responsible decision for her and me!

some well needed time off!!

So it was only a 1/2 of a day but it was awesome!! We have been so tired and starting to get burned out with going on 5 1/2months of calving. Not sleeping at night for that long gets old, but we are just blessed to have a good job.

We had a 1/2 day off on Monday and so we drove to Hill city, SD and took the 1880 train from Hill city to keystone. It was so beautiful and romantic. It is about a 2 hour round trip and through some beautiful country. The old train was so neat. I love the sound of an old steam engine. very fun time. We also walked around town and had buffalo burgers for lunch. I love buffalo meat!! Below are a few pictures from our day:)

Waiting to get on the train!

Was such a beautiful train!

Inside the two cars we rode on!!!

Eric looking at a really neat horse sculpture!!!

Pactola Reservoir on the way to Hill city

If this was a job I would be fired!!!

I know, I know I am never around and most of what I post lately isn't that interesting!! But to be honest with calving it has been work, work, work. So sorry for my lack of posting.

I am getting excited as in 3 weeks I leave on a road trip with my aunt from Minnesota to go back to Oregon for a week. I can't wait to see everyone!! I miss my friends and nephew and such soooooooooo very much. I also miss the beach lots and lots!!! It will go quickly and will be full of go, go, go to see everyone but it will be fun I am sure.

I think and wish I could live closer a lot, but then I stop and think I am torn. I do love the ranch life and I do like not having to deal with all the family BS, but I am missing out on seeing my nephew grow up, camping trips with all the family and friends, etc, etc. I just really want to quit feeling torn. I want to be satisfied with where I am!!! It has helped having a really good new friend here though. My neighbor Denise is awesome and I just love her 4 kids. I spend a lot of time with them and me and Denise even walk every evening together, as longs as there is no lightning. we tend not to like being walking lightning rods!!! So it has helped to ease my feelings a little. But I still can't help but want to be close to those I love and know me best!!

I am really just working on my attitude now. It has needed a major adjustment. Just in general about life, love, work and most of all about myself. I am soooo hard on myself and not self forgiving at all. I was really honestly starting to not like myself at all and I didn't want to go there. I just have to high of expectations and was being lazy about changing those things that need changing. But I am really working on this:) Lots of prayers to the LORD:)

Well not much else to say. Hope all is well in all my other blogger friends lives and my heart and prayers go out to some of you that I know are going through really rough times now.

Been missing my bloggers!!!!

It has been crazy busy with calving and then my grandma came from arizona to visit for a week. It was soooo fun having her here, she was a prity good little ranch hand:) I wish the weather would have been better while she was here though. It is finally getting to be sunny again, we have had rain, rain, rain and more rain. I know we need the rain for the fields but it was flooding the fields. But now I am enjoying the beautiful sun:)

Here are a few pics from my grandmas visit:)

Grandma in my boots and jacket:) They were wayyy to big:)

Feeding "BB" she loved bottle feeding the little ones

The only nice day while she was here so we went to rushmore, she had never beeen.

Me holding bitty!!! Bitty was Tiny, Tiny maybe around 30lbs.

well this could ruin a day

Eric came in with a not so happy look on his face a couple days ago. I asked what was wrong and he said well I was driving on the dirt road in one of the fields and suddenly all the oil pressure alarm went off and I had been going through a bumpy muddy puddle so I shut the truck off and got out to see what was going on and to my big surprise......The bumper was under the truck!!! Yes the bumper fell right off of the truck. Well one might say how did you not notice the bumper fall off, but when you are going through a bumpy puddle anyways you wouldn't and the bumper is not visible from inside the truck. So as you will see in the pictures it is not prity and did some prity good damage. We had to have a wrecker come out and tow it back to the main ranch house. It put a huge hole in the oil pan, went up through the hood and lights and other stuff. When we got to looking at it the bumper was DEFINITELY not installed right and all that had been holding it on was a few little bolts. I just want to say the boss is lucky it happened where it did, if he had been going down the interstate or something with a load of cows at those speeds, I don't even want to think of what might have happened:( YIKES!!!!

A new addition to our little family

So if you have been reading my blog you probably got to read about how I had to give up my horses:( They were my babies and not a day goes by it doesn't make my heart ache. Well since we have moved to a better place and make a little more Eric has been dieing to get another horse, but me..............not so much. Now let me explain. Horses are the most amazing thing in this world and they are sooooo very very special to me and I never imagined my life without them, but when I had to give mine up because of my being sick and us not being able to afford to take care of me and them it broke me. I won't lie that was the hardest thing I have ever had to do, and I have done a lot of hard things but I felt not only like I was loosing my "kids" But I felt like I let them down completely:( So to say the least I have been very very hesitant to even talk about a horse.

Well last Friday Eric came in and announced he is going to go get a horse. He found him listed on craigslist and he was "Free" ya we all know they are never free:) I got very tense and wasn't very happy about it but decided to go with him. The trip took longer than we thought to get there so it was dark. Great it is dark and only a flashlight to check him out. But he walked right up to me and did everything I asked:) The poor guys feet are terrible and the lady didn't know anything about horses and he was in a tiny little pen and had cut his foot really bad but she had never even noticed. So me being the sucker I am couldn't leave him there so home he came:)

He is settling in great and is so friendly. He hasn't been ridden in a year so we will just start out slow and get him going good:) But first we have got to do something about his terribly long cracked feet. But I think he is going to make a good little horse. It has been nice having a horse around again.

Well the below pictures are his pictures, but keep in mind this is when we got him so he still has burs in his mane and bad feet. Plus some of the angles aren't very flattering:) I will get after pics in the next couple days:) OH and his name........................"Pringle" dumbest name ever!!!!! We may have to try and change it:)

Well meet pringle.....

Pringle meets his new neighbors:)

The cut is healing but lots of proud flesh. How do you not see that??? Terrible feet, but I am going to trim them up tomorrow. It will take a long while to get them back to normal but we will do our best:) Got to get his toes brought in and then his heals up, he is almost walking on his hairline, not to menchin how bad his bars and frogs are. We will get him all fixed up:)