A typical day on the ranch

Well it's Wednesday, the middle of the week and the one day I have any time to go out the ranch and see my fiancee. After three classes, (Psychology, Zoology, and Algebra,) it's nice to just jump in the truck and make the 70 mile trek to the ranch. Today was no different than any other Wednesday. I stopped to get some fuel, buy some last minute groceries for supper and off I was. 50 miles later I was at the dirt road that leads to T's house, I stopped, got out and checked the tires like I always do and kept on. Everything was good, so I turned up the music and kept on rolling.
After a while I heard something funny, like a grindnig sound but I didn't think anything of it. I thought it was just the road. But pretty soon after that I hear a loud "pop" and I look and my rearview mirror and one of my hub caps is rolling off into the pasture. So I stop, checked the tires on my side of the truck, nope nothing. Went around to the other side and sure enought... a flat tire. Not just any flat tire but a FLAT tire, all tore up and everything. You could have thought I had been going a 100 miles an hour.. it looked terrible.
 The first thing I did was look at my gps and it said I had 2 more miles to go before I got to the house. Great. I was faced with several choices; change the tire myself, walk to the house, or wait until T showed up. (I call him everytime I head out the ranch and when I don't show up he usually comes looking for me.) I decided that I would just change the tire myself. So I got behind my seat and retrieved all the right tools and with a determined demeaner I got busy. I loosened the lugnuts on the tire with quiet some effort, but when I went to jack my truck up, the handle to crank it was missing. I proceeded to jack the truck up using a screwdriver and after about ten minutes and both arms going numb from lack of blood I had had enough.
 After that I decided to go with choice two.. walk to the house. 2 miles isn't bad, I used to run 3 miles everyday for fun so this should be no problem. Or so I thought... I put my tools away, locked my truck, grabbed my pistol and headed east. After about a mile, I was tired! I was wearing boots so my feet hurt and I was walking up hill which didn't help the situation, and, the pistol was heavy! I was thinking to myself how much I wished T would drive over the hill and come rescue me.. but he didn't. Instead, I looked to my right and low and behold, my favorite little mare PD was standing at the fence wathcing me. By this time I see the house but it was about a mile off and, like I said, I was tired. Call me a baby but if you were in my situation you would understand!
PD just stood there looking at my as I crawled through the fence, took off my belt, put it around her neck and hopped on her. Thank the Lord for gentle horses! I didn't fully realize how tired I was until I was sitting on her as she walked to the house. I had made it about half way to the house when a cloud of dust comes over the horizon. T was on his way to the house! I think I startled him when I rode up to the house with a pistol in my hand. After I told him what had happened he busted out laughing!
Once I had recovered and got some water, T and I loaded up and went back to my truck to change the tire. It turned to be more trouble that I had thought and I'm glad I walked to the house instead of changing it myself.
The moral of the story: always be prepared to change a tire! I think I'm going to have to get a new jack for my truck and a new set of tires...

T G I Friday!!!

In case you didn't know it... It's Friday!!!!

I am excited for many reasons on this Friday afternoon.. One being that the west coast travelers are on their way home! They sold 14 tools and 2 compressors. 14 tools!! They went up there with 15 and I told them couldn't come home unless they sold them all. They were pretty darn close though. Now it's just the long two day journey home ahead of them! That is one of the reasons I was glad I didn't go. Last year we spent the night in the truck...

Reason #2 why I'm glad it's Friday! After this weekend it's Valentines Day! Yay! If all goes well I'm supposed to have a date with this cute cowboy (Aka my fiancée) we're thinking dinner and a movie.. Or we might have to visit the Marfa lights. But we did that last year so we shall see. I received a phone call this morning from my cowboy saying he didn't think he would be able to come in, but that doesn't stop me from being excited! The ranch is still having trouble with busted water pipes I guess.

Reason # 3: I have a practice on Sunday for a horse show that I'm going to at the end of the month. I'm going with some friends up to ft. Stockton to work on my patterns. The show is a SHOT/ASHA show in Stepehenville Texas and consists of four parts: reining, trail, ranch pleasure, and working cow horse. We have rented the indoor arena in Stockton all day on Sunday so we can perfect everything. I'm so excited! It's time to redeem myself after the show in Amarillo. I'm planning on taking my cowboys horse up there because my mare is turned out to pasture And it would take forever to get her in shape. I think Curly will do great though!

I think that's about it for why I'm glad it's Friday and I should say that this post is the result of too much caffeine! In other words I'm hyper!

Home alone

Have you ever spent the night at a different place and woke up not realizing where you were? I did that this morning and it kinda freaked me out. My parents and brother are in California for the week so I'm staying with my grandmother. I like her house, its neat and tidy and the way she has it set up really makes it comfortable, but for some reason I was just out of place this morning. When we first moved here to Texas my brother and I lived with my grandparents for about six months, till my parents bought a house so it's not like it's strange to me... I don't know what the deal was.

But anyways, yes, my parents are in California! Early Saturday morning they got up and made the 2 day trip to Tulare, California for the World Ag Expo. I went with them last year to the show and it was a lot of fun, too bad I had to stay and go to college. Someone has to take care of all the animals though. It's just my grandmother and I here, my aunt and uncle are in Las Vagas for another show.

Here are some pictures from last year.

 The couple from Australia who manufactures the tool that we sell here in the States. They came over to help out with the show.

 My dad working on a tool and my uncle talking with the Aussie.

 Our booth was a 40x40 painted off square filled in with wood chips. That's a lot of space, until you park a four horse trailer and truck in it, then it's about half the size. We made do, but when there were 50 people standing around looking at the tool it was a little packed.

It made me laugh because the first day we were there no one was really interested, so my dad fired up a compressor and drove a t-post into the ground and what do ya know... instantly people were attracted like flies! It was quite amazing and every time it started to die down, Dad would drive another post and it would start all over. At about the middle of the second day we would get mad at him for doing it because we were so tired!

That's me selling Cowboy Yoyo's! I don't know if I will do that again, Ha!

 The day after the show was over we decided to take some time and have a little fun. We had stayed at a little cabin about an hour out of Tulare in a little city called Three Rivers. (Let me tell you something, there were over 1600 booths if I remember correctly, at this show that has been coming for years and years so we could not find a hotel to save our lives!) Three Rivers was actually a neat little town. When you drove through it, it was about 3 miles long because it was in the mountains. So, it was like driving down one big street with a row of houses on either side, if that makes sense. But anyways, the entrance to the Sequoia National Park was about a mile from our cabin so we had to visit!

Those are some big trees! It was too snowy for us to go all the way up the mountain but we still had fun!

This year they are staying in the same cabin but there are only five of them. Last year there were eight of us and we could have used some more help! Next year I'm going for sure, and so is my fiancee.. even though he doesn't know it yet!