Henna, it's fun!

Note on the nose: I believe I re-broke it. My mom and I were fooling around and she forgot and accidentally smacked me in the nose. It cracked real loud and bled everywhere. Hurt more than the first time I actually broke it. Ugh.

Henna is a very old art form.

I like it a lot. I got offered a job by a lady at the mall to do henna tattoos at a new booth! FUN!

I don't think I have mentioned but I do professional face painting. I have probably painted a few thousand faces in a few years. I use a paintbrush and non toxic (for the skin, not ingestible like the cheap dollar store paints) theater quality face paints.

My own face, halloween 08. I can't believe I fit all that hair under that bright orange wig. I also make a big ass out of myself on a regular basis as you can see. Keeps you on your toes.

Anyway, what I am getting at. Henna. I have done both my feet, a lizard on my left ankle a few flowers on my sister and friends and it's a ton of fun.


A swirly thing that was fun. It's on my calf.Here are some facts:

Henna that is being applied to your skin should be kahki green to dark brown.

It should smell earthy, almost like grass or herbs.

After it has dried it should die your skin an orangy brown to chocolate brown.

It should last a week or two, sometimes more in certain areas with thicker skin like the bottoms of your feet and palms of your hands.

IT IS NEVER BLACK. Not when applying it, not when it's dried and you peel it off. Black "henna" is bad. It's also known as PPD which is basically hair dye. It can burn you, hurt you and has chemicals in it that are not good for skin. Even if the person says it's ok to use on skin don't get it. It's not natural.
PPD/hair dye is a sensitizer that a good population of people are allergic to. My mom says that a lot of hairdressers are allergic to hair dye because they use it all the time so they have to wear gloves. It can become as extreme as being allergic to black dyed clothing.

Henna is made from the leaves of the henna plant, it's not black, ever unless enhanced by chemicals.

For more information check out Henna page

Day two: the miracle cure!

I just love, LOVE, LOOOOOVE this stuff called Arnica.

I lied, I am gonna post a picture of my shovel face on here. Though it doesn't even look bad.

See arnica stops swelling. It works every time. I don't know what the hell I would do without it. I have a bottle in the barn. Any time you have aches, pains, bruising, use it. It works. I'll guarantee you it's not a waste of money. Speeds healing. See for yourself I took this just a few hours ago, more than 24 hours after I had my face re-arranged. My nose is a little off to the left.

I am squinting in this picture because I had a bright desk lamp pointed at me to get a decent picture in my room. Note my bitchin' new hat as my friend calls it. I had to have it after I wore it around a store on Sunday.

My nose doesn't hurt unless I smack it off something. I have allergies, my nose is itchy. This isn't going to go over well.

Oh I forgot to mention my mom has severe rhumatoid arthritis. She introduced me to Arnica. It's the only thing that helps her and shes on some 1000$ a shot once a week medicine that does less. Thank goodness for pension coverage.

So this post, anyone who has horses or injuries get arnica. If it can fix my face, it can fix your bruises and swellings.

I brokd my sniffer

Yup. Face re-arranged by a horse. Like I say. It's not about if you are going to get hurt when working around horses. It's when and how bad.

These horses were at a barn before where the stall doors were just opened and they were allowed to gallop out.
They didn't like being lead. They expected to just be allowed to gallop out and away. I opened the stall door, stepped in, put the halter on and went to snap it up and BAM! horse head to face. I didn't even see it coming. Damn

What I did feel was my nose move across my face. Yup.
I said a few words. Ok more than a few words. Blood was coming out of my nose like a faucet. I was holding my nose, which was then crooked at an odd angle.

I shut the stall door, ran to the front isle, cracked my nose back into place and sopped up the blood with a box of kleenax. My boss' husband laughed. He said they couldn't do much for a nose. He was a nurse for a big number of years.
Everyone else stood around with their mouthes open, wide eyed.

I then did 8 stalls there, went into town for some more kleenax, a bandaid and ice pack and did the rest of my barns.

I got a nasty scrape on my nose that would not stop bleeding. I would be talking to someone and see a big drip out of the corner of my eye.

After that I went home and my mom totally wigged out. "your gonna get a blood clot in your nose and die in your sleep then I would never forgive myself!!" so, even though I had been driving all day my dad made my mom drive me to the clinic where the doctor that never shows any emotion laughed at me. The nurse laughed at me and writes on my medical file: headbutted in the face by a horse. Put own nose back in place. Scrape on nose

Everyone laughed at me.

I have pictures, I ain't putting them on here. It ain't as bad as I thought it would be. It isn't terribly swollen.

They took x-rays and my doctor came in and said "well it's broke and I don't think you needed the x-rays to tell you that" Referred me to a specialist. Oh I am going to just die if they have to do surgery on it.

I've started to do henna tattoos. I got a job in the mall hopefully we can work out hours that are riding and driving and stall cleaning friendly. Those pics are for another post.

So this monday goes out to the saying: Cowgirl up.

If the first best view in the world is from the back of a horse....

This must be the second best.

So I have been driving a lot lately. Like every day it isn't wayyyy to wet or raining. Indigo enjoys driving even though she never was a cart horse before I got her. She is the only horse I have trained that didn't try and speed ahead when the cart would hit big bumps and make loud noises randomly wile going down the lane.
She is a good VERY BAD GIRL!!!
But it was my fault. I didn't listen to her all last year when she was acting like a total nut. She randomly will do this half small rear half crow hop in the cart and I always growl and usually smack her in the butt with my reins and she would stop. She would do it when she got scared by the tree line with the evil, horse hitting birds in them, the birds are a whole nother story in themselves. But I finally figured out what it was. The crupper was too low and when she gathered up and tucked her butt in to spook at the birds it would ride the wrong way up her...ahem you know.
POOOR GIRLY!! I am soo sorry I should have listened!!!

I get cookies now right?

When I do carriage drives for events and such sometimes I start to ask the passengers questions, like parts of the harness. We usually go through reins and blinkers and breast collars before we get to the part under the horses tail. I always ask "Do you know what the crupper is?" and they reply "It's the part under the horses tail" I laugh and say "Every horses ass knows that" hahahhaha, I crack myself up. Funny, too funny.

Anyway back on topic. Indigo was so good when I drove her in the other work harness and thats because that crupper isn't adjustable like the one in the photo. I can't use that harness right now. Why you ask? Well we almost had a could have been death for Sydney experience.
I was driving down the neighbors very nice grass laneway across the road and we were going at a nice brisk trot. All of a sudden the shaft holder (the little loops on either side of the harness that hold the shafts up on the side of the horse) FALLS RIGHT OFF. My jaw just drops as I imagine myself doing the same superman impression out of the carriage that Murdo did last spring. I holler WOOOOOOAAHHHH!!!! and wadda ya know, Indigo plants her feet and WOOOOAAHHHS. I just about head butted her right in the butt. Oh Indigo you good, good piggy girl.
The bolt that heald the what was once a team harness now made into a single had stripped and came out of the saddle of the harness. I screwed it back in but it was slowly working it's way back out by the time I got back home.

I have a video but alas it's a .MOV file and I can't convert it yet...darn. It's cute.

Today we have the vets. I gotta go out and clean up Indigo before I trailer her to where I work. No vet fee that way ;P Indigo is always a good girl. She never blinks when she gets shots and doesn't need to be sedated for anything, even teeth, which also come today.

Oh and with the drive yesterday afternoon I learned a valuable lesson. Don't yawn when you are driving a shedding horse at the trot. I was picking hair out of my teeth for the rest of the evening.

Pretty boy

Ok so I have a post lined up about my recent adventures in driving Indigo but I can't figure (go figure the computer wiz is stumped for once) how to convert .MOV files into workable, watchable video files. Any suggestions? Does windows movie maker do it?

Anyway. I have to take care of this handsome boy for the past few days. His owner takes very good care of him and he is a very happy, nickery horse. She'll be back tomorrow.


Who can guess his age? There may be prizes in store ;D

It's scary out there!!

Ok so the economy is starting to hit close to home.

My dad worked at Chrysler's for 35ish years. He deserved his pension. He helped create the local 444 union and was even union rep a few years. He retired about 5 or 6 years ago.
Today him and a good old work buddy are heading to Toronto for a demonstration on why the government should loan the money to them.

What about the 80 year old men that have worked, got their pension? They can't go back to work.

My dad in his mid 50's is still young enough to still work and he does on the side. He can only make so much so he works for the township with his tractor cutting lots that people own that they don't cut. He enjoys it and often comes back looking like swamp thing when the fish flies come around. Fish flies are a whole nother post.

The thing is, if Chrysler's goes down, GM is close to follow. Then Fords. Around here that is a BIG percentage of workers, especially ones over 30. My sisters husband has 14 years in at Chrysler's and he got his permanent lay off notice for June 1st. He is still young enough that hes applying to be an RCMP (royal canadian mounted police, just not on horseback lol hes too city boi for that).

No ones gonna have money to shop at wal-mart or the mall. No ones gonna be able to go to the movies. It's a very scary thing.

I hope the government re-considers and realizes the auto workers are such a big population around here and what it will affect.

So, has the economy hit close to home where you are at? What are you gonna do about it?

Teh cuteness

It will get you.


I took this picture just under a year ago. Stormy was the most social, friendly foal.

Ahhhh it's a monster!

Look at the big mouth on it. It might bite.

It's so big....


It can move mountains of....

Funny Friday- Whats wrong with this picture?

Who can spot it?

I forgot to add

Indigo is the most non-dramatic horse on the face of the earth.

I don't get my vet to do shots, I buy shots and give them myself. My horses trust me a lot and give me a lot less fuss than they do for the vet. That and it's always at least a few hundred dollars cheaper. However I do get him to do teeth. I get teeth done twice a year. I also ride bitless. Why twice a year you ask? Because I could do them once a year but by the time you may get them done once a year the horse may have difficulties eating. Sure they may not be noticeable but it would be kinda like having a cavity and only being allowed to go to the dentists once a year. You can sit in silent agony and wait. I would rather maintain them before they get sharp points or ripples or ridges because of a once year floating.

Anyway thats not the point of this post.
Indigo. I drove her, brought her back into the barn to tend to an old wound from last spring and give her her shot. It's a 5 in 1. It's got west nile, tetanus, influenza....erm I forget what else but she still needs her rabies. One tiny little shot, 65$. Ah what we do for our horses.
I thump on her neck a few times, she doesn't flinch, I take the cap off the needle, she doesn't back away, I poke it into her, she doesn't even blink, I depress it and no drama whatsoever! Shes like the bestest, best of best girl ever!! You would have thought I was petting her neck rather than poking her with stabby objects. Silly girl. Oh how I love her.

Naigen on the other hand, for as bombproof as that little lady was it took a friend to pin her against the wall and me to as quickly as possible jab her and let her go before she had a total panic attack. She seen that needle coming and would try and avoid you with all he had.

The morgans, well they are all good but Suzy, whom puts on a huge dramatic show and acts like you are going to murder her with a chainsaw or something.

The pony is kind of indifferent. He doesn't act like a fool but he jumps away when you poke him with the needle.

Atta' girl Indigo. Show them needle weenies how it's done.

On another note I seem to have lost my camera cord. I can upload pictures, but I can't take any new ones cause I can't charge the battery.