Court Days in Mount Sterling Kentucky

Court Days, Mt. Sterling Kentucky.. home of a Nestle's Hot Pockets plant and for one weekend, a huge flea market, sudo craft fair, lots of eats, lots of people, and lots of walking. Here is a link to the background of Court Days.
http://www.mtsterling.com/courtday.htm
Well, frankly.. its not something I plan on doing again, its not the "Court Days" of yesteryear, even yesteryears of 20+ years ago when I first went. My first experience I think was in about 1987, it had much more a real flea market, crafts, local flavor atmosphere. Now, it was endless booths of much of the same things. I hadn't been to Court Days in probably 10 years, and that was because it was endless T-shirts, sweatshirts.. and not much of useful items, well now, it was mostly useless items.. I mean how many bungee cords does a person need?? How many bras does a woman need?? I'm a woman, I know these things... You can only buy so many socks and stocking caps.. all looking alike from booth to booth.
Oh but food tho.. its smelled wonderful. And yes, it was good, tho I forgot to go back for my apple dumpling, I had some kind of greek chicken thing for lunch, well they said it was chicken.. it was good!! There was a booth that was selling apple dumplings and I thought that would be a great dessert.. I totally forgot.. guess the fried oreo's and fried twinkies distracted me.. no I just couldn't do that to my delicate tummy, it would have gotten revenge, oh but I was tempted...
Well, if you're interested in fireams... here goes... yes.. all out in full view, and ready to buy. Frankly, I felt kind of safe going down this aisle. And there were alot of women looking too.


This team of mules so patient, and so huge!!!

And a team of ponies came past me, they and the mules were doing wagon rides around Mt. Sterling.
I took some time and just walked around the downtown part of Mt. Sterling.. a very old city, early 1800's it was settled. The buildings are so charming.


After all this, did a find any bargains.. yes, but not at Court Days downtown, but a little boot store outside of the downtown hubbub.. I had been hoping to someday find a good deal on Ariat Riding boots, and I did!!! Love my Ariats!! So, Court Days wasn't total bust. I did get to see some fall colors, this is peak weekend now....

I'd Rather Be Riding...

Barn repairs.. not a favorite chore... but a chore nontheless. Over the last couple of years, we've been slowly, and I do mean slowly...redoing the bases for the 8x8 oak support beams for the barn. Even tho they were pressure treated, some still rotted, right at the base where they meet the ground, they were all set in concrete, but the concrete actually should have come up above the ground to prevent the rot, at least that is what we learned with oak.. So.. we've been digging up the ground around the base to the original concrete, framing it up, and pouring new concrete.


We also had to tear out one section of wall for one stall to repair the inside portion.. not fun, and not easy. Luckily whenever we do any project around the house, we always order extra lumber, or two or three or four... so we have enough lumber here to replace what got ripped out...Scout is not happy his stall is off limits until we're done. Luckily the weather is really nice, he can stay outdoors, which he and Cheyenne do anyway; and since its the Youth Deer Hunting weekend.. we aren't riding.

I think we have about 4 more posts to do and we're done. Some beams, like this one, were actually not too bad, it was rotted some, not bad tho, but we had a couple that were so rotted, we had to use alot of concrete to add support.

My husbands' horse Scout is healing up finally after a nasty infection from a puncture wound of some type, I have no idea how it happened or where, there is a small hole on the side of his head, I know it doesn't look like anything to get worried about but it was what it had done inside that mattered, under the jaw was where the infection came out, that's where the big hole is.. lets just say I never want to smell anything like that again!! He's doing fine now. Luckily we'd had his tetnus booster last month.


I got a chance to get out and snap some photos.. our fall colors are just getting started, I think next weekend is the weekend for peak..



And I leave this last photo of the absolute laziest cat.. Shelby.. she was totally unimpressed by all our hard work..

One out of 50,818

Nope, not odds, but I was one person out of the 50,818 people that attended the Kentucky Horse Park for the endurance part of the WEG Three Day Event. WOW.. COOL... BREATHTAKING... SUSPENSEFUL... FUN!!



A true horseperson rides every jump with that rider...



You hold your breath as they clear the jumps, or negotiate a tricky in and out....






The andrenalin pumps.. as you ride that straightaway... this is such an rush riding a horse at a full gallop..






Then I had to take a breath and relax....watch some other activity...



It is just such a rush, like flying.. when you clear a jump... yes, been there done that.... tho not on this scale, but I do have some hunter/jumper experience.




Next weekend is the Combined Driving, saturday being their equivalent to the 3 day event endurance phase.. hopefully I can still get a ticket...
Oh.. and one thing... 'big brother' was watching right over my head!!! at the infamous Rolex water jump...

New twists and turns...

Well, I took down the blog for a bit, thought at first I just wasn't cut out for blogging after all, that my creative writing capabilities are non existent, well.. that's life. Been some changes in my life over the summer, the first and most painful was loosing my beloved horse, Rocky, he fought a couragous battle in the spring against a lung infection, he did end up with scarred lungs, had heaves.. well, he died suddenly on July 25th, he would have been 8 this December.. not a day goes by that I don't miss him!!


I knew that I was going to have to make a decision.. but actually prayed that the decision would be made for me, I really dreaded that call to the vet I'd have to make. Tho I would not have prolonged any suffering.. actually he looked fine, acted fine, except the breathing issue, tho I did start seeing a slow deterioration of his health shortly before.. but nothing making me think he'd go so suddenly. But I had started getting it into my head to accept what I needed to do.
I had already started looking for another horse, I knew that that day would come, tho it came so much sooner than I'd thought it would.. here's the new boy, a 6 year old spotted saddle horse, same breed Rocky was.. His name is Paint It Cheyenne, well he's Cheyenne, and I knew, like Rocky and Colt, as soon as I saw him, I said 'that's the one..' And he reminds me of the horse Michael Landon of Bonanza rode, Cochise, I always thought that little black and white pinto was so cool when I was a kid.




And I downsized this time, Rocky was 16 hands this boy is 14.2 hands, took a bit of adjustment, since Rocky and my appaloosa Colt, were both 16 hands.

And..
My son is off to college, he's really enjoying it, I am so proud of him.. he got into the honors program there. He also was employed for the summer at Natural Bridge State Park, as a part time park naturalist, helping out with tours and assisting the other Park Naturalist with the demo's they'd do. He really had alot of fun working there. He's done with the job at the Park for now.. and now his job is to study!! He comes home on weekends at least.


And...
I am somewhat re-energized lately about working on the china's.. I've been so frustrated and felt stalled, and couldn't figure out what I wanted to do. I want to keep working on the china horses, I just needed to figure out which direction.. and now, I have.. so stay tuned... I hope that what I have coming up will be pleasing to people.. And I am really looking forward to next spring, when Joanie B and Addie V launch BOYCC .. oh, that almost sounds like a poem doesn't it?

Fitting Six horses in a Three Horse Slant load.. it can be done...

Yes, you can fit 6 horses in a 3 horse slant load, it takes some patience, ingenuity, it helps to have food an as incentive, and really really small horses.... horse molds that is, so no need to panic. And the food was to feed the helpers.. All this was in my basement, molds that I had bought from Jim Renaker and Kathleen Hartman. And since I am not using them anymore, I decided to sell them. If all goes as planned, they'll be with their new owner next week. The sixth horse is in the tackroom of the trailer. And if you're wondering what these are... these are the molds to make the plaster casting molds, each section of plaster casting mold has it own mold. So, if the mold to cast a ceramic horse is made up of 7 individual pieces, there are 7 individual molds to make those pieces. And if you have 4 horses that use 7 plaster pieces, there's almost 30 mold sections.. clear as mud isn't it.



Spring has sprung here, with a vengence, actually it went right into summer, so we've planted the garden; corn, green beans, snap peas, tomatoes, broccoli, radishes, spinach and okra.

Whenever a small plane or helicopter goes over the house, I wonder what they are thinking when they see those 'grave like' boxes.... I have a couple of others in the back of the house too. Plus the wild dogwoods are blooming.



Finally I think my horse is recovered from his bought of pneumonia, what a scare, three bacterial infections at once; e-coli, serratia, and strep. He'd lost about 100 pounds, and finally is gaining it back, he just had no appetite either for a long time. Hopefully the 'heaves' (the equine version of COPD) he developed from this tho will go away, but only time will tell. He was a trooper thru the whole ordeal, 10 days in the 'horsepital' too, ouch.. once we got the bill. But we've have had higher vet bills, one dog we had had to have an emergency spleenectomy, which set us back almost $2,000.


I finally got a good photo of Scout, his bicolor eyes, its like someone took a blue felt tip pen and drew a circle. Its really pretty, Rocky's eyes have it too, but not near as pronounced.


Well, happy spring to all.. the next hurdle is hubby's hip replacement surgery for his left hip on the 27th, hopefully it will all go as smoothly as the first one, the right one was done in 2008.

It's snowing... again...(said like Forrest Gump)

I can't help but think about how the character of Forrest Gump would describe this winter here... "It's snowing.. agin...schools are closed... agin.... and later this week, more snow.. agin....."
Where's that robin I saw last week... tho I did manage to snap a photo of this woodpecker.

Sometimes its good to laugh....

I got hooked on these, thank you Sarah.... they cheer me up. And sometimes I start laughing so hard, husband and son really think I've lost it.
They are addictive..


see more Lolcats and funny pictures


see more Lolcats and funny pictures







Hopefully this week, I'll finally get some photos of some of the horses I'm working on... yes, I am working on them... really I am.....