Horse Power

Mr. Cowboy was a rodeo ruff stock rider. He was really good at it. He rode bareback, saddle bronc, and bulls. He really did well in all three events but his favorite event was bull riding.

That is a really tiny picture. I will have to do a better job scanning it. Even though the picture is small, he did not ride little at all. He was all about going BIG or going home.

It takes a special breed of man to get on an animal that is going to intentionally buck. I am not that breed. I prefer to get on nice sane well broke horses. But I am also not as "sticky" as Mr. Cowboy is. That boy can stay on anything. I have never seen him get bucked off a horse we have been breaking.

Then again, none of our horses ever looked like that one. Thank goodness he has a wife the is patient and teaches the horses a thing or two before a rider gets on them. I wouldn't know what to do if I got on a horse and it looked like this as soon as my rear hit the saddle. I would bale off for sure.

Even though he did ride all three events, he got his kicks from bull riding. You should see the buckle upon buckles that this man has. All this was before I met him. He sure could ride those bucking horses and bulls.


He was so good, that he won the All Around Cowboy Saddle and Buckle in the Little Britches Rodeo Association in 1997. He got a college scholarship to ride bulls in Missouri. He was well on his way. Until he shattered his leg in 17 places, at a college rodeo. The Doctor said he was never going to walk again. But a little thing like never walking again didn't stop Mr. Cowboy. He recovered and walked again, and of coarse rode bulls again. But he only rode for about three months until his face got smashed in by a bull's horn. We have it on video. Oh I wish I know how to put it on here. It's crazy. He even went to work the next day. His nose wouldn't stop bleeding so his Mother made him go to the doctor. Well, needless to say, two metal plates and some wire mesh later, to hold his sinus together he was all patched up. This is when I met him. He was all swollen and was wearing a nose diaper. Let me tell ya, he was good looking.

Since then he hasn't ridden but a handful of bulls. He still is pretty sticky, but with a torn rotators cuff, he doesn't get to ride as much or as often, or at all. Now, he resorts to a different kind of horse power.

Mr. Cowboy tries to get me to sell all the horses so he can get a Harley. I think that motorcycles are fun to ride on, as long as we don't go on the interstate. I hate feeling so....well....open. And too, I am not the hottest thing on the back of a bike.

I mean come on!! It looks like I never feed my husband. Plus the person taking the picture isn't a great picture taker. I wanted to see the bike, not so much of me. Why do people do that? I am sitting on a custom Harley Davidson bike with lots of chrome and what do you get a picture of? The chunky chick on the back.

This picture is a bit better! I like to hid behind my skinny husband. I have not ridden a motorcycle in about three years. I practicality had to beg Mr. Cowboy to take me. He thought I was joking. But finally he took me for a ride. It was so much fun. I bet it would be fun to have the wind blowing through your hair. I bet this is what Cowpokette would look like if she were to take a ride with Mr. Cowboy.

And then when he kicks it up a gear.

She would love a motorcycle ride. Little Cowpoke wanted to ride, but he was too little. While we were riding, he found a little friend that he wanted to take home.

That little puppy was only 5 weeks old. It was so cute. See that lady in the back ground? She is the owner of the way cool custom Harley we took a ride on. She tried to sell it to me. I just can't picture my self driving a motorclyle. Can you talk on your cell phone and drive one of those at the same time?

Happy 4th of July!

For the 4th of July we headed over to a good family friend's house. We were planning on going to a big fireworks show, but opted out of that. I am glad we went to Mr. Willis's house. He is a really fun guy. He is all about Harley Davidson motorcycles and he is very handy. When ever we go over to his house we all hang out in his outdoor kitchen that he made and eat wonderful BBQ that he also made! I decided this year to bring a dessert.

I found this recipe over at Pioneer Woman Cooks, who got it from Barefoot Contessa. Talk about yummy. Now, mine is not as pretty at their cakes, but it still tasted wonderful.

Here is a top view. It is soooo tasty. I found out that I am really bad at frosting cakes and trying to make them look pretty. My lines were all squiggly, but maybe that was due to the baby on my leg and the toddler that was trying to help my putting strawberries on the cake? Yes, it was because I was doing three things at one time! Or, I really am just that bad at decorating cakes! I took the left over berries and tossed them into a bowl and brought those for a pre-BBQ treat.

I also made a brisket to take over, it too was so yummy. Now meat is something that I can cook. I love to cook beef. Mr. Willis can also cook some really good beef. When we got to his house, the grilling already had begun.

Mr. Willis has made his own BBQ pits. They are very cool. He welded them and painted them. This one is the coal grill, he has a gas grill too.

The gas grill was cooking the more heat sensitive foods. Mr. Willis is a wonderful grill man. I asked him how he learned how to grill. He answered, "Peanut (a really old black man) taught me all I know. That man really knows how to cook. He would ask me how to build a pit and I would ask him how to cook on it!"

Here Mr. Willis is checking up on the fish and the kabobs.

Shrimp, pepper, and onion! There is one thing that the south has taught me and that is when someone invites you over to a BBQ, you are not going to be eating hot dogs and hamburgers. They BBQ some serious meat here. Meanwhile over at the coal pit.........

The men were grilling up pork steaks, ribs, and the deer meat. I know I have heard the saying, "Too many cooks in the kitchen". Can there be too many Grillers at the Grill?

I mean how many guys does it take to get meat off the grill? I had to laugh. But those three guys right there can grill for me any time. The food will be so tasty, guaranteed. Another fun thing about going to Mr. Willis's house is getting to see family.

Big Grandma was there. She is really Little Cowpoke's Great Grandma, but he likes to say Big Grandma. She is so fun. The boys all love her.

My father in law was there too. Like I haven't seen him in like...hours. He is our neighbor. Good thing he is a good father in law. He helps us out a lot. Mr. Cowboy also decided to come home. It is so nice to have him home. I could use the extra pair of hands every now and then. Oh, and I guess the kids like him too.

Cowpokette can never get enough of her Daddy.

She's got the best seat in the house. But not nearly as cool as Little Cowpoke's seat.

This fancy seat is so cool! It's a homemade motorcycle seat stool, complete with saddle bags. Mr. Willis made this too!! I love the foot pegs for the foot rest. He just is a super talented guy. He can fix motorcycles, build anything, and can BBQ like you wouldn't believe!! We left the BBQ just around "drunk" time. We came home and did some fireworks in the yard. We had a fun day!! I hope everyone else had a great day!

Alone Time

With three kids and Mr. Cowboy only coming home on the weekends I do not have much alone time. Who am I trying to kid, I never get any alone time. Until last week. I got a Nanny! She comes to my house about three days a week and only for a couple of hours. During that time I put my boots on and run to the barn. I have loved being able to ride again. I started out by riding Ozzie yesterday.

He is just now three years old. I had not ridden him since the night at the arena when Mr. Cowboy rode him. One would think he would have been a bucking crazy colt, but oh not so. He was perfect. We were jogging slow and being all sorts of western pleasure lazy. He naturally loves to go slow. Which is a plus for a western pleasure horse. I have been wanting to take some pictures while I was riding. My Dad was telling me the other day, "You can take pictures while driving in your care at 70 mph, but you can't take a picture while you are riding a horse." I told him that I know that my car's breaks work. Horses don't always behave. But, I wanted to show everyone what a super fantastic wonderful boy he is. So, I propped my camera up on one of our barrels and pushed the timer to start. Ozzie wouldn't go. So, I had to encourage him to move forward. Ozzie brushed up against the barrel and...........

There you have it, and extreme close up of some Louisiana grass. I was too lazy to get off the horse and pick up my camera, so, sorry no pictures of us riding. I tried. After my ride on Ozzie, I rode Big Cowpoke's horse, Pretty Girl.

Just look at that face, she loves me right? That is a totally different expression than Ozzie's face. That is okay, I am alright with the fact that Pretty Girl does not like me. I am the horrible mother that tacks her up and then puts a kid on her. She has gotten really barn sour lately. At the last rodeo she would walk to the first barrel, run around it, and then come directly home. Big Cowpoke didn't try to stop her, so she did it again and again. My theory is that she knows he won't do anything to correct her, so she is totally taking advantage of him. Also, I think she does not like playdays. She gets board with them. Mr. Cowboy has asked for me to put her up for sale. So, she is up for sale, but I am secretly hoping she won't sell. All because of this reason here.

You can trail ride this mare anywhere. She will walk away from the barn and down the road and not even flinch. You can relax while you are on her back, let your reins drop, and not stress about her spooking at a thing. Let me give you the first demonstration.

This is Red, our paint stud. When ever you drive a horse trailer past his pasture he goes nuts. He thinks all trailers that come down are road carry his girlfriends inside them. Pretty Girl and I walked right by him and she didn't even look at him. And one more thing, she is in full heat!! She was walking and peeing and she never once stopped or tired to go over to him. I didn't touch my reins at all. I was so amazed.

We then made a turn down a dirt road. This road was so busy. There were kids riding four wheelers, a man mowing his lawn, a motorcycle passed us, a truck passed us with ladders on the top of it, and about six little terrier dogs came and barked at her feet. And do you think she even lifted her head one bit? Nope, I was so surprised. I was getting ready for at least a little side stepping. She did move her ears to hear the dogs when the were barking at her. What a good girl. I also managed to get a picture of us.

There we are! Shadows are not very flattering. We both are sporting quite the "hay belly" look. After we passed all the scary things, which I thought would have been a big deal but she just walked passed them like it was nothing, we turned down another more secluded dirt road.

We left all the houses and dogs behind us. It was so nice to just hear her hooves hitting the road. This road only has three houses on it and a lot of pasture and hunting land.

This is the cow/hunting pasture. In the fall they use it for duck hunting and in the spring and summer it has cows on it. Or something like that. I am not sure when duck hunting season is here. I will let you know when I am woken up at 6 am with gun shots. Then we made it to the back of out pasture.

You can see how well the horses keep the grass cut. This is just one side of the pasture. We have way too many on this pasture right now. You can also see how close I live to my in laws. There is also a pond. It's about halfway from my house to the fence. It's the little "hill" looking thing in the middle of the pasture.

We rode past our old run in shed. The hurricane took that all away too. It used to be all closed in with tin. That tin just blew away. I am not too sure where it ended up. All we were left with was the structure. I really wanted to make it down to the end of this dirt road where there is this really neat old house and a huge pasture to ride in, but I was all by myself and I didn't want to venture too far away from home. But I did venture on a little side trail.

I guess the kids and their four wheelers ride through the ditch here. Pretty Girl just walked into the woods with no questions asked. You can see her ear listening to me. I had asked her to whoa so I could take a picture. I really love riding this horse! After our little woods venture we headed back home. Down the busy dirt road and back past our stud horse. Red was waiting for us.

I taped Red jogging along the fence so you could see how calm my horse stayed.

Where the horses and their stuff reside.

I was reading through a bunch of different blogs today and I came across one that posted about their barn and what their tack room looked like. I have tried to go back through my history today and I can not seem to find the blog that I got the idea from, but if they read this, I am sorry, I could not remember where I saw it or I would give the credit. I think it might have started over at Pony Girl Rides Again, but I am not too sure. I did take a few pictures of where I hang out every evening. Where we feed 14 horses every day. I thought I would start with a far away shot, so you could see the big pictures.

This is our barn. This barn was built by my father in law, Mr. Cowboy, and my brother in law. They built it back in 1998. When Hurricane Rita came through here, the roof was torn off and ripped apart our hot walker and a bunch of our round pen panels. Since then we have put on a new roof, and the walker still stands in the same place with one arm. Now, just a warning, this is not a fancy place. It has a lot of cob webs, and a lot of dirt. But it works. And it's messy too. I have tried many times to organize and some how it always ends up messy. So, here is what the inside looks like.

I was standing outside the front gate looking inside to the left. We have 8 stalls, five on one side and three on the back side. There is also a sand filled middle part of the barn where we can kinda ride if it's raining. We use this area to tie and saddle horses.

At the end of the stalls there is a gate that leads out to the big pasture, where all the mares hang out. Then we go onto the other side of the barn.

This side of the barn has the tack room, our hay storage, and the wash rack. Right now we only have half our hay storage, normally that thing is filled up. We will get some more with the second cutting. Oh, and that mare tied up there is for sale!!! Please someone buy her!!

This is our wash rack/run in shed/breeding shoot area. It comes in handy for many different reasons. Right now it's being used as a run in shed for Buttercup. She gets fed separately from everyone else. She has short horse syndrome and beats up all the bigger horses at feeding time. Now onto the tack room and feed room.

When you first walk in you face another door that takes you out to the walker and the round pen. On either side of the door are places for us to hang our saddle pads. Then there is our spinning saddle rack that Mr. Cowboy and his dad welded. They did a great job! Lets turn left now.

You can see our freezers where we keep our grain, and on top of those freezers you can see our feed buckets and our supplements. The freezers were treasurs that were turned useful. We also have a lot of headstalls and halters. There have been a few times when we have run out of halters to use. We were switching around pastures and had horses tied everywhere. Turn left again.

And here we have all the halters and the trash feed bag and a shelf for storage. Then another left.

Here is our first aid and fly spray section. Nice and tidy right? It is better then it has been I promise. We put brushes on the self too. I keep mine in a tote, but the community brushes are on that shelf. We also have a fridge and freezer that have medicine, water, and Popsicles, in it. Then there is my tack box.

This is my very messy tack box. I had it in college. We had to have a tack box to store all of our saddles, bridles, and anything else in them. This box started out in Ohio, moved to Utah, and now is in Louisiana. I just can't seem to part with it. It takes up a lot of space, maybe I should consider moving my things in with everyone else's things. Maybe. And one last shot of our feed bins.

I spared you all the pictures of what treasures are all around my tack box. There are a lot. But that is our barn. A quick little tour of our tack and feed room. I guess, this can be an "open" tag. If you want to show us your tack and feed rooms, you are more than welcome to play along!! I will leave you all with a picture of Ozzie. He is my colt that I am breaking out. He is such a sweet boy.

His mother is a thoroughbred, can you tell?

Clouds, Birds, and Horse Lumps

So, I have a bunch of randomness that I am going to post about today. I have been super busy lately. For the past few days I have been getting Big Cowpoke ready to go visit his Dad. It is always so sad and stressful when I pack him up and take him to the airport. Not only am I sad to say good bye but his little brother doesn't understand where Big Cowpoke has gone and why he isn't coming home. Many times Little Cowpoke has asked, "We go get "Gah"? "Gah" is what Little Cowpoke calls his big brother. I am not sure why? But he misses his big brother. But while he is gone, I try really hard to stay busy. I have checked up on my baby birds. My have they grown up fast. They have their nest right next to my front door. They are my attack birds. When people come to the door the swoop down and try to get the person.

Aren't they just the cutest? Well, I guess, they can be cute. If you don't mind cleaning up after them.

When do they leave the nest for forever? I can't wait to knock that sucker down. I probably will have to put up a bird house to try and detour them from building a new house on my porch next year. I will have to do all this while Big Cowpoke is gone. Maybe he won't notice. While he is gone I am not only going to take down that bird nest but I am finding some time to ride.

I got Lucy out of the pasture and tied her up to the trailer. You can see she doesn't have much room to move around. That is due to all of the treasures that are piled beside her. I guess I could also tack her up in the barn but all my saddles are still in the horse trailer from our last outing. While I was brushing Lucy I noticed a lump. It's a strange lump. The lump is on her rump (I sound like Dr. Seuss). Here is what it looks like.

See, weird right? I do not know what it is. You can push on it and she doesn't mind it. It's kinda like a puffy thing. An interesting note, when she walks that leg is funny. When she brings it forward she kinda throws it down. Like she is stiff in her hocks or her stifle. I am not sure. I do know she kinda just thumps her leg down. Not much movement in her fetlock. I am thinking she might have arthritis, but what is up with that lump? So, can anyone out there solve Lucy's mysterious lump?

She is such a funny horse. She really loves people. I think Lucy loves treasures too. There even is a kitchen sink. That has been there for years. I am not too sure what one might need that sink for? I know what a sink is used for but what would someone want with that old nasty sink? Maybe in case the bugs want to wash their wings? Well, after we got all tacked up I headed over the the pasture to where I was going to ride. And while we were walking we passed up some more treasures.

Yep, that is a bucking bull there. With a wheelbarrow that has had a flat for........well.....about forever. Lucy is such a good sport. She doesn't mind those scary treasures. She just walks right on by. I warmed her up behind my house and then Lucy and I went on a short trail ride with two other riders. We rode down the street. She is really good. I should have taken more pictures of our ride, but somehow it's hard to hold a camera and ride at the same time. I will have to perfect my photo taking skills while riding a horse. Maybe when I have ridden Lucy more than three times. Our riding times have been limited with all of our afternoon thunderstorms. I will leave you all with some pictures of what our afternoon thunderstorms leave us, besides a lot of rain. They leave us with some really beautiful sunsets.

It kinda looks like a mushroom cloud. But that sunlight shinning through was amazing. The photos really don't do it justice.

Until next time, y'all come back now ya hear!