Comment roundup, plus vay-cay

I know, I'm laughably terrible at those adorably polite personalized replies all the Good Bloggers manage to give to each and every comment they receive. I thought I'd get better once I started approving comments, but no - I just get the email on my phone, click "publish," and keep doing whatever I'm doing. I mean, that's better than getting constantly sidetracked to say thanks, but it sure isn't the kind of conscientious comment acknowledgement I sort of fantasize about. Oh well. Look, I'll make up for it with hyperlinks!

BEC and OS asked if I'm not going to SF. Yes, yall did miss something. Pay attention! There will be a quiz! No, seriously, I kind of mentioned it in the last line of an unrelated post then never circled back around to it. Umm, over Memorial Day we decided that we're doing ok like we are, and it's both dumb and absurdly expensive to rush to combine households again, and we should really hang in there another year like we are then reevaluate. I'll probably move to CA next summer, but it depends on a lot of factors. For now - I need to buy firewood and four tons of hay.

The NASTR post - thanks again to everybody who popped up and offered sympathy or bits of advice or whatever. I felt horrible and blamed myself, because everything comes back to the human - you can't go blaming the horse when anything bad happens. But the logical part of my brain says it's just bad odds. I feel like I did all the right stuff - tons and tons of LSD in '09 and '10, boots for concussion, ride slower than you train, etc. Sometimes shit just happens. Hopefully this is a minor injury and she'll bounce back stronger. It could be a sign that she's wearing out or that 50 miles is just too much for her, but I won't know til she rehabs and we try again a few more times. We'll see. :-/

Also, Mel made a good comment about the POV of the ride vet. She's totally right, and it does make me feel somewhat better - but I still think if you can turn and walk away from a crying person and a lame horse without one single word of advice or even commiseration, you should quit vetting rides. That is not the way to attract newcomers to the sport.

Content animals & plants:
Plant comments - I took a picture of the Mystery Veggie. It's not a weed! I have a full complement of high desert weeds in my yard, and this looks nothing like any of them. It looks like a stubborn stunted... cucumber? Maybe? It's got little prickles on the stems and ribs. The black thing is a soaker hose, if that helps with scale.


And here's the spinach that I can't bear to slaughter and devour.


lytha, I am sticking with "I don't want to upset her and have her reinjure her leg" as my excuse for not bathing that nasty mane. She always gets mad and paws when I tie her up to bathe her! Next week, definitely!
Sara, you won't be my friend anymore when I admit that I do absolutely nothing to encourage her mane. Every couple of months in the warm season I bring a bottle of people shampoo and a bottle of people conditioner out and scrub it. I brush it when it gets fairy knots or when I want to braid it, and I usually slather it with Cowboy Magic before I brush it. That's it. Try ignoring Peanut's?


Now. I am leaving. I just got done slogging through 1000+ unread posts, so I'm going to try really hard to stay up on yall's blogs. But this Friday is our anniversary (as Facebook keeps reminding us - it's like a not-too-bright little kid that keeps going "hey! Friday is your anniversary! hey! did you know that?"), and everything around here is kicking my ass, so I'm going to SFO.

I mean, there's the poor broken horse. The traumatic spider incident. The poodle invasion. The rapid proliferation of fire ants in the backyard, which I treated with ant poison, which Cersei snuck off and ate, which led to explosions from both ends in the den. (I checked - it's only lethal to dogs in enormous quantities.) And my good laptop, the '09 macbook pro, is in the shop for overheating, so I'm stuck using the '06 macbook pro. It's a good computer and a testament to the quality of apple products, but, you know, it's five years old, gets burning hot, has no battery life, and the CD drive is broken so it's still running 10.5 with no way to upgrade. Everything takes at least twice as long, I can't access my network backup, I can't sync my phone or ipods, WAAAAH. I know, such first-world problems. :rolleyes:

I will put up a sappy "I love my hubby" post while I'm gone, and show yall pictures of the cute clothes I got for pressies. I will probably drunk-post after some Korean chicken and soju. (If you know how a southerner would say "Korean", then yes, that's exactly how I say it.) I will miss my farm and my animals - but not for a couple days at least.