JQ is doing just fine after his little incident earlier in the week. He is something else, not many horses could get in and out of the predicament he was in.

Dusty, Torey and Pastor are off on an adventure. Rose has some company in for the weekend, and she needed a few extra horses to have on hand, so I trailered them down on Thursday. They will come home on Monday.

Tuesday Shadow and Deb's horse Cheyenne will move to their new home, the new location for Liberty Reins Ranch. We wish Deb every success at her new place.

This morning we are off to Malibu Dude Ranch. Gymkhana and Trail Trial, dinner at the ranch, hang out in the saloon afterwards, then Trail Trial and Mounted Shooting Practice tomorrow. Rob, Robbie and Jim hope to get some target practice in too, on the rifle range. I've promised Hunter some swimming time, the indoor pool sure has looked inviting when I've been past it, so in we will go.

Tuesday and Wednesday I have horse dentistry scheduled, Friday too I think. Showed the rental house to two sets of people yesterday- we've really had a lot of interest in the house, now it is just a matter of getting references checked and going from there. A woman and three of her four kids stopped by yesterday, and I really liked her- she took a rental application, and I'm hoping to hear back from her.

I'm rambling this morning! Woke up early and couldn't fall back to sleep, figured I'd get on here for a quick blog. Soon the whole house will be up, and then we'll all be on the road.

www.ro-noranch.com

I've been in the house all day, working on typing up the lease form for our rental house ( left our house twice to show it to family's) working on the web site4s ( very frustrating- I've got the Royal Flush web site all updates, and now my site seems to be totally down. My computer does not like my web site!) Also got some other paperwork done, made a few transportation arrangements and so on. I was in the computer room when I hear Erin come into the house saying she needed my help. Said that JQ had gotten cast some how in his turnout. She said he had his legs away from the pen, but that he seemed to be caught between the pile of hay in the pen and it's panels. ( if you are reading this Rose before I get a chance to tell you, don't worry- he is fine) Erin hops in the truck with me and down to the pen we go. I can just see the top of his head sticking up from out of the hay. I walk around the outside to check things out, and see that his legs all seem to be unencumbered, not sure why he isn't getting up. I have Erin hand me his halter- and reach down to try to put it on him so that we can attach a rope and open up the panels to flip him over, thinking that the hay is just too steep for him to roll up onto to get his legs under him. Only thing is, I can't get the halter on him, his head seems to be stuck. Now, there is hay everywhere, and I cannot see his head clearly, so I run my hand down his face to go to cup his jaw so that I can lift it to get the halter on. Nothing budges!!! He has gotten the panel between his upper and lower jaws, and it's stuck fat! It went in past his teeth and is resting on the bars, and he now cannot open his mouth wide enough to get loose, and his neck is all kinked around! It's totally wedged, and at an angle, it's pretty freaky. I slip my hand into his mouth and twist his head just a little and get it popped off! Whew!!!! He sat right up and got up, was a little unsteady on his feet for a second or two, but then literally shook it off and walked over for a drink. Now that it was over my heart started going, he could have broken his neck or jaw- just like that! He even had the bars bent slightly from the pressure his mouth had put on them- what a freaky think to have happen. Would never have been able to imagine that in a hundred years. Thank goodness for Erin. She had just put him out, had walked back to the barns and heard the panels rattling. She looked out and couldn't see him, so she went down to check on him, then ran up to the house for me when she saw him cast. She and I both thought at first that he had simply 'turtled' himself. Other than a little tearing at the edges of his outer-upper inscisors he seems totally fine. Other than making sure he doesn't get any swelling or have any issues eating over the next few days- I think we got off easy!

www.ro-noranch.com

Many thanks to Catherine King and her Hubby for taking these shots and sending them to me. Catherine is the editor of our PFHW magazine.

www.ro-noranch.com

We have the original farm house on the property nearly all renovated and ready to rent out. Yesterday I called two papers to put ads in, and I also put an advert on Craigs List. Today the phone was ringing off the hook! We have one woman coming over Sunday ( she's flying in from Florida to house hunt) and we had two other sets of people want to come out tomorrow to see the house. One other woman wanted to come out this afternoon, but I did not hear back from her.

We finally sit down to dinner, and get a phone call from one of the sets of people wanting to come over tomorrow- they were in the area- could they please stop by. We said sure, they said they'd be by in about 30 minutes. We sat to quickly eat, five minutes later the phone rings again, poor connection, it's a woman wanting directions. They are close, so we walk down. Turns out it was the people that I had expected earlier in the day- they finally had made it over, so we still had the other folks coming over. Ahh!! All went well enough- the first people were just leaving when the second set arrived. We now have to start going through the process of finding the right people to rent to I guess. It would be great if we could find someone who was looking to stay long term, and were good tenants. ( both sets of folks that stopped by seemed nice- so fingers crossed)

www.ro-noranch.com

Nicole on the big screen while riding under it.

Cardillo being tortured in his stall.

Schooling Tappy

Nic and Pastor with their ribbon!

Cardillo and I getting the mail in Trail Class

www.ro-noranch.com

Here's a couple pics from the show.

www.ro-noranch.com

After too many hours in the truck ( we had two 'breakdowns' on the way home) we finally made it back home from Memphis. Our Nationals Show was fantastic, all the horses were great, and for me personally the fact that Rose rode Pastor and won 3rd National Champion A/O Fino Stallions was just phenomenal! I'm so proud of her, and of Nicole ( 4th National Youth Fino Stallions!!)

Other wins include JQ, 6th National Chmp 4 Yr old Performance Stallion, and a 4th Place Nat. Chmp in Versatility for Nicole and Cardillo. Cardillo also did very well for me in Trail, we were Honorable Mention ( 7th ) and for Cardillo to be there in Trail Class at the National level was just great, already looking forward to how well he will do next year. His behavior at the show was excellent, and he really excelled in the Mounted Shooting. This was an official CMSA Event, held strictly for Paso Fino's, and Cardillo and I were 3rd National Champ. in Mounted Shooting. His times were fast enough for us to have been Reserve, but I missed one balloon! ( but hey, one miss out of four runs ain't bad!) and that miss knocked us down out of second place. He was excellent though, all that hard work paid off. I'm looking forward to getting more shooting in on him, and maybe hitting a few more matches before the weather really gets bad.

Tappy was excellent. He did get a bit strong in Nicoles class and they were DQ'd. In my class he was perfection, just didn't make the cut. We had 20 in our class, and he really showed everyone that Pinto Paso's can excel in the show ring. We received dozens of complements on him, and lots of people, including several PFHA judges, thought he should have made the cut and placed. All in all we were very pleased with his performance.

On Friday evening the President of PFHA, Lee Vulgaris, walked up to me and asked me to go with him. He took me over to where they had Profeta standing after his demo ( Profeta is a legendary Paso Fino Stallion, one of our very best in the history of the breed) Lee asked if I'd like a photo taken of me and Profeta, and just like that had one of the professional photographers come over for the photo op. I'm not usually one to be thrilled by this, but it was a neat opportunity, and Profeta is the sire of Rosanne's Fino Stallion, who had done so well for us.

There's so much more to tell about our trip to Memphis, hopefully I'll get my head together and get more of it on here. Right now I'm going on too little sleep ( I was at the showgrounds until 2 a.m. on Friday, was back there by 8 a.m. and that was the last sleep I got until last night!) and my brain is foggy. There were some awesome photo's taken of the Mounted Shooting, I'll get some up soon.

( Robbie just told me that he was elected to be Class President at school! )

www.ro-noranch.com