Slow & Steady Wins the Race !!

I did it!  Finally!  I'm down 50 pounds!  It's been a goal for me for quite some time.  These last ten pounds have not come off as the first 40.  But now the exercise is starting, so I'm looking forward to the next 50 lbs.

At work, there are two things going on.

One is with two of my co-workers.  First person to lose 20 lbs. wins -- losers buy drinks.  I have 13 lbs. to go. 

The other thing is thru Blue Cross (in a way).  It's a climb to Mt. Everest.  It's to promote good health all around.  You pay a $5 entry, and my employer matched it.  There's a pot of about $250 ... so there are five $50 prizes.  I wouldn't mind one of those.  Here's how it works.  Mt. Everest is a ridiculous amount of miles to the top (don't remember how many right now).  Over a five week period, you keep track of how many 32 oz. glasses of water you drink, how many flights of stairs you climb, how many miles you walk or run, how many hours of aerobics you do, etc., and each of those things is with a certain amount of miles.  We keep weekly track, and did a starting weigh-in and took measurements.  There's a prize for the biggest loser, the one with the most inches off, the one that's first to the top, etc.  There are quite a few employees involved.  What's great is the level of support ... the encouragement from your co-workers ... motivation, etc. 

This is the first week.  I've already done zumba twice (fun, but man do I have two left feet!) and found a 3 1/2 mile loop at my house that I will walk every day.  There's also a very busy flight of stairs at work, too.  Love seeing that. 

The thing that prompted me to start losing weight (other than my son, of course) was how much junk food is at this job, and I knew I'd be as big as a house in no time.  It didn't take much of an excuse (a birthday, a Friday, a holiday) for a shit-ton of sweets and fattening fabulous food to show up.  And it's not easy to resist at times, but it's gotten much easier for me now.  The reward is worth it.

And I feel so much better.  And what's even better than that ... I have health insurance, and have gotten all my tests done.  All of my test results are within normal limits -- sugar, kidney, liver, blood pressure, cholesterol, etc.  I couldn't be happier and so looking forward to summer!   I will still look like a cow in a tank top this year, but anything will be better than last year.

Colleen, Buck and Hardtrigger

Colleen came down for the weekend.  We took the horses out to Hardtrigger for a while.  What a gorgeous day!  Finally!

Buck is doing all kinds of shedding out.  We were checking out his newly developed dappling! 

Colleen took all three of the dogs with us.  They did great!  Didn't bother with the horses, and stuck with us for the most part.

Both horses were perfect!  I love these guys!  It's so nice knowing I've got horses I can throw anyone on and not worry about it. 

I hope today is just as nice!  Happy Easter!  (Oh, for those of you that believe in Easter, enjoy your day!  For those of you that don't believe in Easter and can't handle being told Happy Easter ... please go take your meds.)

Crocodile Rock ...

Went over to Emily's last night, and took a ride through the orchards, behind St. Chapelle's and over to Crocodile Rock, er, um, Lizard Butte.  Gorgeous evening!  And lots of fun! 

The beauty of the naked orchard was not captured in this photo.  I don't think I'd ever seen the orchard without a leaf on any one of the trees.  It was a really neat look ... especially in wide expanses.

Kahlua was her amazing self as always.  I love this horse.  Here's Crocodile Rock off in the background.

Up on the back of it is this religious ... thing.  Kahlua colors!

Spring Clean-Up

Another couple of weeks and the water will be coming into the irrigation canal. Time to rake all of the leaves out of the little canals all over the property. Lots and lots of leaves, lots of sticks and crap that have fallen from the trees over the winter, and lots of rocks to make a fire pit with.  Despite raking and burning all day today, there is still so much to do.  Raked a bit here and picked up tons of branches, but still need to do a final raking and weed pulling.  But I love having this spot for the horses to graze while I sit on the deck and have a drink.

The walkway is finally clear.  Wish I had the money to lay some stepping stones, etc.

See all those wire panels laying on the ground?  Yeah.  They need to be put up. 

I trimmed back the lilac bush.  This thing gets out of control quickly.

Trimmed back that other bush (whatever it is) and cut the rose bushes on the left.  Raked up quite a bit of crap here.

Still needs more raking.  Ugh.

Dug a hole ... ran into lots of rocks ... got sick of digging and quit.  This is for that railroad tie, that will eventually hang a man gate for the pasture that just got cleaned up last weekend.

The burn pile where I spent the majority of my day today.

Raked out the little irrigation canals.  I think I'm about ready for the water.  Have a little more raking to do, but will handle that this week.

Damn hole.  Still needs to be about a foot deeper.

Here's another shot of the same area.  Too lazy to delete it.

Deck needs cleaning off, and that one rail in the white vinyl fence needs to be put back up.  It's startin' to bug even me.

Change of Plans, Kiva!

Sorry, Kiva.  You don't get to produce swimming puppies.  Now there's a different plan for you!

"After a few possible choices, and some decisions later we are happy to announce Kiva's last litter will be with Johnny Cash.  JC is an all around great dog!  He excels in agility and disc, and was in training for Open level herding trials."

And his owner is now dying to breed him to a dog that does not work livestock!  Isn't that awesome????


Now ... instead of producing those awesome swimming puppies, here's what you're going to produce!

"Expecting Black and White puppies"

What an accomplishment!  It's SO hard nowadays to produce those kinds of puppies.  Very rare.  Congratulations to you and your owner, Kiva!

Before & After

Before ...

After ...

Looking like pasture!

Well, after all of the bad luck I've had with trying to get someone out to do some work around here, I finally hit the jackpot!  Found a guy who is very professional, prompt, cleans up after himself, etc.

Hired him to get rid of all of the concrete that was left over from the mobile home, cut down the 90 year-old apricot tree (apricot pits are toxic to horses), put in a frost-free spigot for water for the horses, and get rid of that gigantic tree stump in the front of my house.  Here are some "before" shots.

I did some work while all the contractor was doing his thing.  Took down the sheep holding pens ... and the round pen.

Here's the 90 year old apricot tree that I was having torn out.

This lilac is staying though.

They brought the equipment in.

They made quick work of the concrete ... so much so that I didn't even get any real photos of the progress.

The tree was down in no time.  I headed to town to get some lunch for everyone.  By the time I got back, all of the branches were being hauled off, and there were only the trunk parts left to be chopped up.

Then on to the big stump.  Stubborn thing.

Despite the 3' trench dug all the way around it, they could not get the stump to budge, so they covered it all back up.  Will need to get a stump grinder out at some point.  A disappointment, but I got something else done I didn't expect to do ... electricity out to the pasture!  :-)

Here are some after photos.  Still a lot of work to do, but much easier to work with now.