Riding at Fourth of July Canyon

A few weeks ago I took my new mule, Choctaw, for a trail ride with some friends. Since I had only ridden my Choctaw twice, I really wanted to get Colleen's opinion of him.
Paula had offered to take him on some bosque ditchbank rides to get him used to bicycles and other urban experiences, and Choctaw and her foster mule were buddies, so I let her keep him at her place. But I decided to invite her up to the mountains to join my friends for our trail ride up at Fourth of July Canyon, so it just made sense for her to bring Choctaw up for me to ride.
But first I asked Colleen to ride him for a little while, while I rode her mare.  Notice, the britchen that Choctaw is wearing? That britchen involves a long, terrible experience surrounding the obnoxious behavior of someone I had falsely believed to be a friend.

I hadn’t bought a britchen for Choctaw yet because I was told by his previous owners that they never used one on him on their trails and hills and his saddle never shifted forward. Indeed, while doing his test ride, we rode down into a deep arroyo and his saddle stayed in place. Also, when I rode him at the Mule and Donkey Event just a week earlier, Paula told Allen, another friend, that Choctaw’s saddle fit him well and he didn’t need a britchen. So I trusted everyone’s opinions and information.
But when I saddled up Choctaw for our Fourth of July Canyon trail ride, Paula said I needed a britchen and she offered to let me use the one she had, even though it was the only britchen she had brought. I was actually surprised that she hadn’t brought me an extra britchen since she has two, one for her mule and one for her foster mule, especially since I had only had Choctaw for only a couple weeks and she had told me that he didn’t need one! If she thought Choctaw needed a britchen and knew she had told me earlier that he didn’t, then a good, kind friend would have…should have brought an extra britchen to share or at least should have told me that we should put off riding at Fourth of July Canyon until I bought Choctaw a britchen. I could have ridden Apache afterall!
But our trail ride started off well. Choctaw was perfect for Colleen and her mare was wonderful for me. There were 11 of us heading out to ride together on the beautiful trails at Fourth of July Canyon in the Manzano Mountains.


Colleen's mare is much taller than I'm used to and feels very comfortable, but a little like riding a tall elephant smoothly lumbering through the forest.

My friend Kristi liked having her horse tailgating Colleen's mare because he tends to be very forward and chargy and it makes her nervous when she can't control him, but she likes to use Colleen's mare as a wall to slow him down. Choctaw was happy to stroll along way in the back.

It was Colleen’s first time to ever ride a mule and she kept saying how comfortable he is and how relaxed and wonderful he is on the trails. I was very proud of my new mule!

We had two young boys on the ride,the horse in front is actually a talented Mounted Shooting horse.

The forest was so beautiful and green. Every time I looked back at Colleen and Choctaw, Colleen was grinning from ear to ear. Mules just make you smile!

Some of these photos in this post were taken by Paula. Here you can see me riding Colleen's mare out in front and Colleen on Choctaw.

                                                      Pretty cool looking dead tree…..

                                          See? You can’t help but smile while riding a mule!

At one point a couple miles down the trail, we had to enter through the Wilderness gate….


Choctaw walked right through, relaxed and content to be out on the trail….

                                              C and my awesome mule Choctaw!

The trail was a bit steep and narrow in sections and there were rocks and boulders, but Choctaw easily covered it all and had no problems even though he has mostly been ridden on the flats and on the rolling hills of the Chupadera Mountains in Southern New Mexico. But I have spoken with his previous owners who owned him in Oklahoma and they had taken him to the Winding Stairs Mountain Recreation Area in the Ouachita Mountains at Cedar Lake Equestrian Campground
for a long weekend of camping on trails that varied from easy to very rugged. And even though he was ridden every day, all day, he never was sore and was always ready to head out on the trails.

The game plan was for Colleen to ride Choctaw until we stopped for lunch and then we would switch…..

Standing on the Crest of the Manzano Mountains beneath Mosca Peak.

                              Me up front with Colleen and Choctaw behind.

And we finally made it to our lunch/rest stop where I tied up Choctaw, and he patiently waited until I was done with my lunch.


And then we all saddled up and got ready to continue down the trail.

                                  See my face? It’s impossible to ride a mule without smiling!


                                                        Choctaw is so comfortable to ride!

And those ears! Sometimes they stand straight up, sometimes they spread out like airplane wings, and sometimes they just flop all over the place.

The trail was very thickly overgrown and it was kind of magical to ride through all of that lush green, especially when you live in a desert state like New Mexico.


                                                         Antenna's (Ears) Forward!

                                                              Yep…..still smiling!

                             Airplane ears flying over the Crest of the Manzano Mountains!


                                  Smiling huge here!…..Gotta love those airplane ears!

The switchbacks began…………and this is where Paula began griping, complaining, and whining about not having a britchen on her mule because my mule was wearing it instead. It didn’t matter that she had offered it to me at the beginning of the ride and she even put it on my mule. Didn’t matter that it was her choice to loan me her britchen and not bring another one for me even though she believed that BOTH of our mules would need a britchen. Didn’t matter that she was supposed to be a good friend who should be helpful and not hurtful to a friend, and not set up her friend to fail.
No none of those things mattered, because she raised hell and caused a scene and made all of us on the trail ride listen to her complain. She chose to dismount her mule because she said he was not happy about going downhill and his saddle was riding up on him. She chose to walk the remainder of the trail ride, and even played the martyr and refused anyone’s help or assistance. Willow even offered her son’s horse to ride, but Paula refused! I even offered her Choctaw to ride and I would walk. I was wearing my Ariat hiking riding boots, so walking would have been no big deal for me. But she refused! And she even went so far as to loudly proclaim that she was walking to “teach me a lesson and make me feel bad”…exact words! I already felt bad, but I was angry that she could be so needlessly cruel.
Paula did take up Colleen’s offer to pony her foster mule, but ironically was very rude towards Colleen on several occasions during and after our ride. She was also rude towards others too. When anyone made a silly joke about our mules, or about us riding an ass, Paula would roll her eyes and comment “horse people!”. She complained to me at the beginning of the ride about Colleen being late to the trail head. And Colleen told me later that evening on the telephone when she called me, that during the ride whenever she teased that if I ever deciding to sell my mule, she wanted to be first in line, Paula rudely said, “Lisa better never sell him to the likes of HER!”.
And then when the majority of our group rode on ahead without Paula,(and I was glad, because I was tired of hearing Paula whine and complain) she trailed behind with two other riders in our group, Loeta and Cory, probably complaining all the way back to the trail head. (I was later told by Loeta that yes, Paula did frequently complain, yet she still refused any help or offers to ride their horses)
Her behavior was really horrible. And I was so embarrassed that I had even invited her on the ride!

When I got back to the trail head, I took her mule and mine and unsaddled, untacked, brushed down, and watered both mules. But when Paula returned to the trailer, she never once acknowledged what I did for her and just sulked around and shot me evil looks. I even hung up her bridle, britchen, saddle, scooped the manure, placed hay bags back inside the trailer and loaded my own mule into her trailer. She never even said thank you.
What she did say was that she was going to bring my mule back to my house and she wasn’t going to ride him on her ditch bank trails. She said it in a very threatening way. I think she thought I would beg her to keep my mule and would be offended…but seriously? I would have never let her take Choctaw back to her home after the terrible behavior she portrayed towards me and my friends. She seemed surprised when I agreed with her but then told me that she thought I wasn’t the best person to own a mule and that I should sell him to her (By the way, this was at least the 4th time she had asked to buy him from me! Yes, I got a good deal on him, and she knew it. And she acted jealous and seemed to want him for herself, even telling me that it was a good situation for her since her foster mule would be going back to his owner at the end of the summer, and her own mule was still laid up from an injury, so she would need another mule to ride.)

But, when I told her no…. Yet again, she got upset and started criticizing me about the britchen, about taking Choctaw on mountain trails, claiming they were too rugged for him and it was cruel of me. She complained that I didn’t douse Choctaw in fly spray before our ride, even though there were only a few flies at the trail head and none on the trail. She also chastised me about how I asked my friend Colleen to ride Choctaw and give me her opinion. Paula claimed that her opinion should have been good enough for me!!
She even made me cry out of anger and frustration. I don’t do drama well and I rarely ever get angry. I'm also very softhearted, which seems to make me an easy target to be other people’s doormat. But here's the kicker......when I was crying, Paula was LAUGHING at me and saying how 'hilarious' (her exact words) it was that I was crying.

When we finally got to my house and I took my mule back, she once again told me I should sell Choctaw to her. She actually said, “This is your last chance. You sell him to me and I’ll do all the hard stuff with him, and I’ll let you ride him and do the fun stuff”. Exact words! I was offended that she said that to me. I then offered her a check for $100 to cover the costs of feeding him and scooping his poop for the couple days that Choctaw was at her place. My intent was for her to finally realize I was severing all ties with her. She greedily snatched the check from my hand, just as she'd done with all the hundreds of dollars of gas money and countless lunches I paid for her over the past year.
But then as I walked up the hill to my barn, she even had the audacity to yell out loudly, “Give him some of Apache’s Previcox tonight”. She said it as if she owned him or thought her opinions mattered to me!

What the hell?? Why would he need my mare’s arthritis medicine?! He was not sore after our 7 mile ride, he was not even tired. And he’s only an 8 year old mule…not a bit of arthritis in his joints.
I had to shake my head in disbelief as I ignored her “request” and continued walking, because one of the things she harped about during the short time that I knew Paula over the last year, is that she knew best when it came to taking care of her horses and mules, and she didn’t put up with people telling her what to do for her animals. In fact her favorite saying is “My Mule, My Rules!”.
Well, she was crazy insane to even think I would consider selling my mule to her.





Later that evening Colleen called me at home because she had seen me crying and was upset that Paula had caused it. And on the phone with me, she was angry...no...furious...with Paula's horrible behavior. Colleen aggressively told me on the phone that "that nasty woman had better never show her face at my business nor try to ride with me again". Yes, those were her exact words.

(But I later discovered that Colleen is a fake friend, a user and a manipulator and will say and do whatever she needs to get her way or get what she wants. In fact, a year later she is best buddies with Paula. Talk about a backstabber!)

Well, other than discovering that some people I thought were friends actually never were, and they just seemed to have used me to get invited to rides and be shown my favorite trail routes, the ride at Fourth of July Canyon was absolutely wonderful! Choctaw was perfect and did everything I asked. He even led for a while when we had to bushwhack around a fallen tree and he made me smile the entire day.
Now if only people could be as wonderful as animals, life would be perfect.


(All information in this blog post is the truth as I experienced it.)

Thoughtless Neighbors

 

One of our neighbors behind our house, had a bunch of people over today for their their youngest son’s birthday. The other day I saw the Dad setting up some straw bales in their front yard and thought nothing of it, but if I had known then what those straw bales were for, I would have spoken up.

For 2 hours today, about 10-15 boys were shooting very noisy guns, while the parents and grandparents and their friends watched and cheered them on. It didn’t really bother me and I just figured that the noise would be good desensitization for my horse. I knew they weren't shooting BBs or Airsoft ammo because the hay bales were facing one another and were less than 50 feet apart. I was thinking it must be some kind of laser guns they were shooting. It never occurred to me that those boys were shooting something that could physically hurt my horse and other animals!

So, when the party had quieted down, apparently so everyone could eat, I headed up to the barn to feed my animals. My daughter walked up with me and immediately brought to my attention many little brightly-colored balls covering the ground in Apache’s paddock. What the heck?!

Apache showed up around a tree and was noticeably upset, nervous and trembling. I was able to calm her down with carrots and petting as she walked beside me up to the barn. The entire way up I kept seeing those colorful balls scattered all across Apache’s paddock…I then realized that those boys had been shooting paint balls! And then I glanced over into the llama and goat paddock, which is closest to our neighbor’s front yard, and was shocked at the high numbers of paint balls covering the ground.

When I arrived up at the barn I realized I had left my llamas and goats locked up in their stall all day. I do that sometimes so they won't get in the way when I'm cleaning and refilling the water tanks, which is what I had done that morning. I can’t tell you how relieved I was at that moment for my lapse of memory, because if I hadn’t kept my llamas and goats in all day, they would have been blasted and pummeled by paint balls!

Photo below was taken from the second floor of the back of our house. Our neighbor’s house on the far right (notice one of the straw bales set up for the shooting gallery in his front yard). Our llama/goat paddock is in the middle, our barn is at the top of the hill, and Apache’s paddock is on the far left. Even the black water tank all the way at the bottom of our hill, beside our small gate, had paint balls inside of it!. We even found them on our trampoline and under the trees to the left of our stairs and basketball court!

I also felt terrible when I realized that poor Apache wasn’t so much traumatized by the noise as she had been by watching all those paint balls barreling over into her paddock, some exploding as they hit our trees, rocks and the ground. She had spent the entire afternoon cowering down at the far southwestern corner of her paddock, beside my neighbor friend Val’s horse barn. I should have went up there and spoke to our neighbors as soon as those boys started their paint ball battle.

But I didn’t. And I didn’t even speak up when I saw all those paint balls all over my property, because I was just too terribly upset, and I knew I wouldn’t even be able to speak calmly. And I really really dislike face-to-face confrontation. So, Jen and I spent close to an hour picking up the countless paint balls, getting our hands paint-covered and filthy. I couldn’t let Apache nor my goats and llamas out of the barn until it was all picked up because of the concern that the goats might try to eat the paintballs and the llamas and Apache might get the paint all over their feet as they walked around. The neighbors and all their guests sat in the backyard, which is right beside our animal paddocks and watched as Jen and I picked up their paint balls, but no one came over to offer to help or even to apologize. It wasn’t until Jen and I had filled our bucket almost 1/2 full before I considered walking over to my fence and speaking with my neighbors. It was perfect timing because he and several other men had come out to the front of the house and were practicing shooting the paint ball guns.

The bucket we were filling up with paint balls. Notice the golf balls, too. This same neighbor practices golf from his front yard and we are always finding his golf balls in our animal paddock and backyard, too.

 

I called my neighbor over to my fence and showed him my bucket of paint balls and told him what a thoughtless and careless thing he did by placing the paintball shooting gallery facing into my animal paddocks. I told him how angry I would have been if my horse, llamas or goats had been shot, and I told him that I even found paint balls in the animal’s water tanks, that I had just scrubbed and refilled that morning. I also told him that many of the paint balls traveled over a hundred feet across our property, and we even found them all the way down down the hill beside my house (which made me thankful that I had put our chickens back in their coop earlier in the day when it looked like we might get rain…we didn’t, but one of those paint balls could have seriously injured one of our chickens!). And I told him that he should have set up the paint ball shooting gallery in his own back yard or farther over on his own property at a different angle.

He did sheepishly apologize for his mistake, but then offered to have his sons come over to help us pick up the paint balls. I declined his offer because most of the paint balls had already been picked up, but even though I didn’t say anything at the time, I felt that the Dad should have offered to come over to clean up the paint balls on our property and not the boys, considering it was the Dad that set up the location of the shooting gallery.

But I made it clear that he had better make sure his sons didn’t shoot any more paint balls towards my animal paddocks, now that they owned their own personal paint ball guns.

What’s ironic about this entire encounter is that here I was worried about stupid people setting off fireworks in our neighborhood even though fireworks have been banned, because of the extreme fire danger. I didn’t realize I needed to be worried about my animals getting shot with paintballs by thoughtless neighbors.   

Worst Nightmare!!!!

 

I never thought this could happen to me!

On Saturday, some &%**#@!* thief hacked my debit card information and tried to place a bunch of charges on my bank account!

They had a grand old time surfing the internet planning their shopping strategy. First they went to Old Navy and attempted to rack up $200.00, then they hopped over to DSW Shoes and tried to get away with another $200.00 worth of items, and then they zoomed on over to JC Whitney and tried to force $280.00 onto my bank account, but it didn’t go through, so they tried again. When that didn’t happen, they lowered their expectations and tried for $175.00 worth of charges.

Thankfully, after the %&$#**! thief made those first two attempts at DSW and Old Navy, to have a fun shopping spree at my expense, my bank got wise and suspended my account for suspicious activity, which shut down the %$*@#%! thief from trying to rack up anymore charges.

Also, thankfully, this particular account is mostly static, and I only use it to transfer small amounts of money into it just for online shopping. It rarely ever has more than $50 in it, but I shudder to think what could have happened had I not used an account like this one and instead used my main account for online shopping. Yikes!

Still it makes you wake up and smell the coffee, knowing how vulnerable we are while shopping online. Online stores and businesses can be hacked into at any time and personal information stolen. In fact, just last month, we received an e-mail alert from Sony, a company that we have bought video games from in the past, telling us that they had been hacked and all of their customers were at risk for having their personal and financial information stolen. Scary.

What saved me from losing even my small amount of money was that something told me to check my accounts late Saturday night, even when my eyes were heavy and I really just wanted to shut down my computer and go to sleep. I had just checked it that morning and all was fine, but I’m glad I re-checked it again, because the %$#@&*! thief had been up to no good, probably figuring that no one would notice if they did their dirty online-shopping late on a Saturday night. I’m grateful that my bank is a 24/7 operation and I called them right away. And I’m thankful that the 6th sense that God gave me, told me to check my accounts just one more time.

Be careful online. You might believe you’ve covered all your bases and you’re safe from the bad guys. You might think it can’t happen to you, but it can and probably will. Be prepared.

The Terrorists Have Won!

 

I just have to share something terrible and tragic with everyone.

Our dear, sweet British friend from Wales, who was staying with us the past 4 days, tried to fly out of Albuquerque today with my husband, Ranchman John so they could visit a mutual friend in Florida on Monday.

I took this photo just before they left for the airport.

This kind, gentle man is over 70 years old, works for the BBC and has been asked to be Chaplain for the next World Olympics. He is a devoted and loving husband, married for over 40 years, a caring Grandfather and a Great Grandfather, too, and he has no criminal record at all. Not even a parking ticket.

My own kidlets adore him. And he has the patience of a saint.

Guess what they made this poor man do as he went through security?

They pulled him aside and took him to a private room where he was forced to succumb to a strip

search!!!!!

Can you imagine?!

He was almost in tears! He was so humiliated and felt so degraded and disrespected. It was akin to the way the Jews were treated in a Nazi war camp!

 
And to add insult to injury, because of the undue harassment, he missed his flight and now has to sit in the airport all day, with his painful back, waiting to leave on the red eye flight tonight. John offered to bring him back here to spend the day, but he did not want to have go back through security again, and another possible humiliating strip search tonight. 

And do you know what this wonderful, gentle man did after he got over the shock, embarrassment, and humiliation of being strip searched and having to miss his flight?

He sat down with a calming cup of tea and prayed for everyone involved: the rude and insensitive security officers, the rough and scary police officer, even the terrorists that caused all of this fear and disruption to our daily lives.

Robin and I are both avid tea drinkers and enjoyed having a bit of tea every afternoon.

And do you know why this terrible experience happened to Robin?

He was wearing a “suspect-looking” back support belt because Robin suffers from a painful lower back due to the invasive cancer, that almost took his life last year. And of course, he carries a foreign passport.

This was taken this morning at 7am, hence the sleepy faces on my twinlings.

Such a shame!

This is the main reason I avoid flying anymore. 

I worked for the airlines for 10 years and my husband still does, and my family flies for free, but flying is not fun anymore. There is no sense of freedom. We are treated like cattle, passing through meat inspection. 

And who do we have to thank for this injustice?

 
We all like to believe we have our full freedom, but the terrorists have obviously taken it.

Not a Happy Birthday……..

 

Today started off pretty good. Everyone was excited! It was Jen’s 8th birthday……and Jax’s first high school lacrosse game! I had wrapped Jen’s gifts last night and they were all set to go, we bought an ice cream cake…her favorite, and planned to have some pizza and her birthday party after we came home from the lacrosse game.

But that was not to be.

We all piled into the van, Ranchman John, our friend Robin from the United Kingdom, the twinlings, Jen, and me…and Dobbie, too.

After warming up Jax was ready to play and the team looked great!

Even Ranchman John, as the Assistant Coach got in some practice time with the goalie before the game began.

And then helped get the team ready to play.

Jax plays Defense and carries a long pole, and although he may not be very fast, he is very good with his stick skills.

I was very proud of him out there, even though I was also very worried. Some of the players on the other team were 16 and 17 yrs old and very big!

But he held his own and seemed to have a great time.

Jem, Robin, Jen and I found a wonderful location to watch the game from just off the sidelines, with a large bin to block the wind. It almost felt like a summer day. Robin really seemed to enjoy himself.

In the end Sandia Prep lost 8-5, but it was still an exciting game and all the players did a terrific job.

There was one injury and I was impressed with the amount of respect shown by both teams as they all knelt down quietly until the player was able to limp off the field with some assistance.

But as we were packing up, Jen looked up at me from her chair and said she felt very hot and her tummy hurt.

Uh oh! This isn’t good.

And it wasn’t.

By the time we reached the van, she was in obvious distress and began violently throwing up several times. My poor baby!

And on her birthday, no less!

Thankfully we were parked across the street from a Walmart and Ranchman John, Robin, Jax and Jem headed over to get some children’s Immodium (for the horrible diarrhea I know is coming) and Emetrol to help with her nausea.

Then they drove back to the mountains, dropped us off, because by that time I was feeling exhausted and nauseous and Jen and I both needed to rest at home. Afterwards, they drove back into Albuquerque to go out to dinner.

I felt so torn. Jax was so excited and proud of his first game, and I was, too, but I was also so worried about my daughter. I wish I could be in two places at once. And I hope Jax knows how proud I am of him and how much I really enjoyed seeing him shine and do his best……..

Right after we got home, Jen vomited again. I gave Jen a bath, shampooed her sticky hair, washed her soiled clothes and tucked her into bed. Made myself something to eat and drink, because by that time I was feeling dehydrated and had a headache.

Soon after she was in bed, Jen threw up again. Thankfully she had the bowl I gave her. I’m still so worried about her because, unlike me, who only threw up twice when this virus worked it’s evil spell on me, she’s thrown up 5 times already and she’s very thirsty and keeps trying to drink water and ginger ale. I’m so worried about dehydration. I may be taking her to the emergency room later tonight if she isn’t able to keep anything down.

Ranchman John just got back home and brought a package of Depends for tonight’s expected diarrhea, along with some Pedialyte. I’m a worried mess, because she’s never thrown up this much before. In fact she’s always been my healthy child, while my twinlings had everything from RSV to multiple ear infections, but Jen has rarely ever been sick her entire 8 years of life, besides a few minor colds.

I feel so bad for her. She got this nasty, evil bug from me and now she has to suffer, but she’s just my little baby girl. Not fair! And on on her 8th birthday, too!

She not only missed out on having her birthday party on Thursday with her best friends because her Mama was sick, but now she’s missing out on her birthday cake, presents and celebration with her family, too.

This just breaks my heart.