Life as a procrastinater

Well, about all I've been doing about this blog is as the tite says, procrastination...but its time to break the chain.
Since I last posted...umm..lets see I'll have to go back and read it to see what has happened since then.


My first week of work was quite busy, and fairly difficult mentally as I knew that I should remember where things were and how to do things, etc. But I just couldn't recall it all as fast as I used to. I'm getting back into the groove now, and feel at home in both clinics again, although I am rather embarrased when I see a regular client and can't remember their name. Also they have changed all the pricing since I've been there, so all the often used prices that I used to quote are different, adding to my mental confusion. We've had some interesting cases in though and we are slightly short staffed (as usual) which makes for lots of things to do. One vet who was on maternity leave until just recently has returned to work part time, and I had never worked with her before, she has a very different personality, nor nearly as laid back as the vet I'm most used to working with, so its been an interesting adjustment. I've been enjoying the new mental challenges and the fast paced atmosphere, although the physcial challenge just isn't there most of the time.
Another new things since we came home is that I acquired a yearling Quarter horse filly. She is a bay with no markings, and we call her Riata. She's very quiet, and personable, in fact we dewormed and vaccinated her the other day and she didn't even fight it at all. She stopped nibbling on the fence when I poked the needle in, but she didn't react otherwise. I'll get a picture of her up soon.
Last weekend, we had a visitor - but not a human one. Sis-in-law has been taking care of a puppy for her brother unti he moves out here, but she was busy last weekend and so Dozer Dude and I took care of him. Finny is a 6 week old chocolate lab puppy, and he's incredibly cute!
Spring has finally sprung I think, but you can never be sure, the grass is pretty well green now and guys are out seeding a bit. Its semen testing time, and we've had many bulls through the clinic in the last couple weeks. One decided to destroy part of our handling system behind the clinic and take a romp through town, he was loose for about 45 minutes as the vets and several other people chased him around with up to 5 different pick-up trucks. It was quite the site, they eventually corralled him at the old stockyards in town and hauled him home again! That was our excitement for a friday!!
We took our horses out for their first ride a week ago on Sunday, we had a nice long walk to Grandma's (about 4 miles) where Dozer Dude's dad picked us up with the trailer (it was getting dark and the horses were lazy). I had Guthrie (my 8 yr old gelding who is in our wedding pictures) out on saturday night just to lunge him around and try to get him listening better, but it wasn't very productive. On Sunday afternoon this week, we again went for a ride, but from the time I mounted, I could tell that Guthrie was upset or uncomfortable or something, I tried to get him to do some simple maneuvers on command and was met with head tossing, tail swishing and ear pinning, which made me wonder what the heck I was doing wrong. So we headed out to inspect the fence on the hillside pasture - but Guthrie was still acting silly, so I took advantage of the nice flat cultivated field next door to try and put him through some paces. As I tried to circle him he was just being ornery and wouldn't stay in a lope or move in a nice circle, he'd either run straight ahead with his head turned sideways, or turn 90 degrees. When I did get him going in a circle, he'd drop his head to the ground every time I asked him to speed up. After much frustration I asked Dozer Dude to tell me what it looked like while I was riding....He said everything looked fine, but said he'd switch horses and take a try at it. Sure enough, as soon as he got on and started asking for the things I was asking for, Guthrie decided he'd had enough and tried to buck him off. The footing was deep enough that it took some effort for him to buck, and Trevor just held on and spurred him until he smartened up, then made him do some circles and we went for a nice long, mainly uneventful walk. It'll be interesting to see how Guthrie acts next time I get on him :S
I had to work saturday morning, but in the afternoon I felt quite domesticated and cleaned the entire house and baked 3 dozen oatmeal/banana/chocolate chip cookies, a pan of Toffee squares with kick-butt icing and a pan of brownie pudding. It was a productive afternoon :)

Today I told myself I would be productive...but I have to admit that I wasn't as much as I would have liked. I slept in til 10, then I spent almost an hour on the phone with my dad, and another hour on the phone with one of my "mom's" (its plural because without my real mom, I've sort of adopted a few ladies as mentors) It was a great talk - and I'm so thankful that God has provided me with such great support since mom died. Later I did some errands up town and then came home to attack our yard - I think the back lawn is going to completely disappear under a sea of pine cones if I don't do something soon!! I hacked up a useless little tree that I didn't like in the one corner of the yard, and raked up alot of debris from around it and along the back fence, I also cleaned up the raspberry patch a bit and removed a bunch of junk from the garden in preparation for it to be tilled up and planted back to grass - its just not meant to grow vegetables - not with 4 - 70' tall spruce trees towering over it!! During the course of the afternoon I talked to all three of my closest neighbours at different times, it was nice to catch up with them! Then Dozer Dude came home and I barbequed chicken legs and curly fries and made grilled tomatoes. It was a nice "summery" supper. I'm looking forward to more of those!!
Anyways, I finally uploaded a bunch of pictures onto my flickr account. So I'll post some links in another entry.