How To Scare The P!ss Out Of Mrs Mom ...(Not Horse Related)

And NOT involve things that slither and hiss.



The scene:

Sitting at desk, on phone with client.

Children with Dear Husband to my right on the couch.


It's warm, so I'm in shorts as usual.




Now, I have a couple  of   .. well, *issues*, I guess would be a polite way to put it, about things that are small, creepy, crawly, and of the insect./ arachnid variety. Spiders are at the top of my Freak Me OUT List. They WERE in the number 1 spot, until the Great Snake Incident of September. Now SNAKES are in the number 1 spot. Fang things anyways...



As I am on the phone with my client, it was all I could do NOT to scream. (I do believe I did in fact squeak pathetically despite my best efforts at freaking the f*ck out in silence.)



Something.
Walked.
On.
My.
Thigh.


SomethingWalkedOnMyTHIGHDangit!!!!





Cept it really *wasn't* something walking on my thigh. Oh no. It was merely Merp, slipping under the desk, come to sit next to her Mom as she always does. Merp's whiskers made the "walking" sensation across my thigh.




Yep. One more life gone off of Mrs Mom.




Stay spider free y'all......

(And yes, my client, the Locust Brothers AND Dear Husband all laughed themselves sick over my reaction. I think even MERP was laughing at the entire thing.)

10-25-2011- Mark That Date!

Why is that date so important?


Well, because THAT my friends, is The Day that Mrs Mom is going to REALLY have to kiss her Golden Hermit Status goodbye for a long while.

It all started innocently enough.... I saw a horse that I thought *might* suit the needs of a client. The horse is currently located in Virginia.

I sent the information I had to my client, who promptly said, "ROAD TRIP!! We are going together to go see this horse!"


What was a fairly straight forward road trip to see a horse has turned into an opportunity I can't say no to. My good friend Cindy Smith, at Central Virginia Horse Rescue has asked me to do an improtu hoof care presentation for horse owners on Tuesday, October 25. Yes, folks, Mrs Mom will be available for questions, harassment, and Rasp Enemas in the flesh.

Interested in more information? Zap me an email, or feel free to connect with Cindy. 
(Find CVHR on Facebook!)

Hoping to see some of you there!
~MM

Cuteness From Tuesday

 Jo the Wonder Nanny Dog

Gets the Zoomies

 Merp gives the old girl a run for her money!

 Perpetual Motion Machine, Merp. ALL her pictures are

blurry, because she.never.stops.

 Wrecking Crew talking with Tater

This is such a sweet colt!

And the Cub with Phat Boy. 

Both boys groomed the hide off His Royal Redness,

and managed a ride before the rain began.

I've never seen a happier pony.

PSA Time

P!ss Poor Planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part, 'k?


Today's topic is a pretty interesting one, and I will be expressing MY views on it. Feel free to toss in your own in comments.

I, personally, do not trim for owners who are not there. If there is a dire emergency, yes- I will bend that rule. But in general, no- I do not provide service if there is not an owner present. The reasons for this are many- mainly because I am allergic to pain- be it pain from a client horse having a brain fart and hurting me, or pain from an owner misunderstanding things and giving me a headache. Allergic. To. Pain. 'K?


I also have only kept a small handful of clients. Clients that keep their horses on a routine schedule, who are there for every trim with no complaints (and it isn't like I ask them to skip work- because of the small number of clients, I can set times on weekends, evenings, etc to work with their schedule for the most part. The problem arises when it is 120* outside. Then I do tend to stick more to my schedule, which is o'dark thirty before the sun/ heat get too intense.) These clients also have animals that behave very very well.

But every once in a while, the best of intentions go awry.


Phone rings earlier this week. It is from a client I've been trying to connect with for about 3 months. Her horses are borderline on the behavior aspect, one is borderline on becoming a pathology, and one is young and tends to push his luck at times. Not a horse I'd want to trim alone and expect to have it done safely.

Mind you, it has been a considerable amount of time between appointments. I've been trying to set something up- but it never worked out. (Count in failure on MY part here too, as I spent the entire month of September with walking pneumonia, 2 rounds of antibiotics, and just sick.as.hell.)

Back to the phone ringing. "I need you here as SOON as you possibly can get here!! The horse's feet are a total MESS. When can you be here?" and the client proceeded to list off when would work to schedule an appointment. We settled on fairly early Thursday morning.

I woke up at 3:30 with a splitting headache. Took some meds and tried to go back to sleep. Woke up early, head still splitting, forced down some coffee and headed out. My mood, to say the least, was not bright and cheery.

I arrive at the client's house to find the gate at the end of the driveway locked and no one home.

Seriously?

You call me in an uproar, insisting that I get there like, three days ago, and when you finally find a gap in your schedule to fit in trimming, you are not there?


Now, I know there are a whole lot of hoof care providers out there who don't mind getting the job done when there is no owner present. There are a whole lot of owners who have no problem with not being there. I'm not saying either one of you is in the wrong- it is YOUR choice what to do or not to do there. *I* am saying that MY choice is to NOT provide service when no one is around.

I am ALSO going to say the following:


No matter what the arrangement you have made with your hoof care provider, their job is the following:
- Provide hoof care to the best of their ability.
- Arrive on time or as close to on time as possible.
- Provide service promptly.
- Return phone calls or emails promptly.
- Notify clients of schedule changes.


Notice that no where in there do I say:
- Train your horse to stand for hoof care
- Train your horse NOT to bite, kick or strike the hoof care provider
- Catch horses that do not want to be caught for hoof care

Those particular things fall under OWNER'S responsibility.


And if the OWNER is not capable of teaching the horse, hire a competent trainer to teach BOTH of you.


People, look. If you have a horse, do your hoof care provider a huge favor. Teach them to freaking behave, BE there when YOU say you will, and KEEP YOUR HORSE ON A SCHEDULE, so that there is not four months of EXTRA work to be done, and DON'T bitch about the rise in price for that four extra months worth of work. You want to save money? Keep them maintained as you do your vehicle.

That's my PSA for the day.

Not Horse Related... But Possibly Entertaining

The weather has me feeling "froggy" of late. And I've had a BIG desire to bake, cook, and just be... dare I say it? OK I'll whisper it- listen close... domestic.  

There. I said it. However quietly, it is still out there. 

The kitchen has proven a fun place to be, now that it is not 120* outside (and 100* inside). 


I've been craving homemade bread, but really unhappy with what the bread machine had been producing. Just seemed like something wasn't... "right". So the Cub and I decided to try making bread completely by hand.

Well, the FIRST batch of bread came out lovely. I only destroyed the kitchen a little bit, learned that flour on the floor is very slippery (yes. I fell. Square on my butt.) I also learned that my entire family snorfs up bread in the blink of an eye. 

 See? These are the first two loaves made this week. I couldn't find my bread pans, so we decided the heck with it- bake them as they sat on the cookie sheet. It seemed to work well, and the Locust Brothers got a huge kick out of helping each and every step of the way. They also thought the way the bread rose was a blast.


So. Every last crumb of the first batch is long gone, snorfed up in a hurry. Dear Husband made homemade split pea soup yesterday, and put in a request to have it for supper tonight with more fresh bread. Happy to provide for the love of my life, I set about making more bread this afternoon.


There must have been something way way RIGHT with the chemistry this time. Either that or I was just holding my mouth right while beating the dough into submission. Cause holy exploding yeast balls--- this stuff got HUGE.

Of course, as I turned on my oven to warm it up, I hear a *SNAP!CRACKLE!POP!SIZZLE!* coming from within. With great caution, I eased the door open, only to see the element smoking and blazing, looking mighty weird. Turned the oven off... and lo and behold... a one inch piece of the element lay smoking on the floor of the oven.


Good thing the neighbors are only a quick walk away.. I was able to bake these beauties off over there. Now, they dough had risen to epic proportions. But it settled a wee bit on the walk across the yard- which in all reality is probably a GOOD thing. If they had been as tall as they were now wide... yeeeowza...

Huh. There surely is something just Not Quite Right about this image.........

But they sure do taste good!!

Oh Boy... Fun With The Camera

The Kid/ Colt/ Tater got some extra attention today. We've decided he looks like a little Shire from the dryer. Yep. Dear Husband came up with that. He has the bone, the temperament, the movement, the kindness. Shire that was tossed in the dryer and NOT set to "fluff". And he shrank. A lot.


Cub took a lot of these pictures. He is getting a pretty good eye for this stuff!











And yes, this sure is a mighty sweet sweet Kid/Tater/Colt.




Too sweet.