Today I took three teams of 4-Hers to a state horse contest. It is sort of like Jeopardy. We’ve been practicing every Saturday for a few months. They did much better than I expected. I thought that one of my junior teams would do well and that the other junior team and the senior team would get whupped on.

The good junior team froze during their first match. They were asked questions that I know they knew the answers to and they just sat there. So they lost that match. The younger junior team won their first round.

The bad junior team played again and lost which put them in the losers’ bracket against our other junior team who had had a bye. The good team beat the bad team but not by much. They then won another match and then lost. That made those two teams about 10th and 13th out of 27.

The senior team lost their first one too. The seniors then came back and won two matches before losing. They were about 12th out of 22. I hear that last year none of the teams won any matches so it is an improvement. They all seemed to have a good time though.

Now I have to head out to a bull riding contest. I hate bull riding. I don’t see the enjoyment of the sport at all. But this is a major fundraiser for the 4-H group that among other things sponsored my teams at the contest today. So I have to go help out for a while. I’m only signed up to work for an hour and then I’m out of there. I’m using Spirit as an excuse. He’s not allowed to stay out on grass too long or he’ll get sick. So I have to come home and rescue him.

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I just realized that I have not posted the news that the evil mother-in-law went to Atlanta for the weekend to supervise the release of the crazy brother-in-law from the mental institution. (Rereading that sentence I’m not sure if I should laugh or cry at the absurdity of my life.) Somehow her absence doesn’t seem to be the cause for celebration that it usually is. Maybe that’s because I know she’s coming back on Tuesday. But I did spend some time in my living room last night in celebration of her being gone. When she is here I spend most of my time in the bedroom so as not to have to listen to her speak.

I went today to watch a veterinarian work on a friend’s horse. The horse is lame. This vet is an acupuncturist and does other holistic work that I don’t understand. I’m chiropractic certified and therefore more of a ‘quack’ than most vets but this lady was way beyond me. The problem came when the horse was trotted for inspection before any treatment started.

My thoughts – “Wow, she is really lame!”
Other vet’s comment – “Well, she looks fine on the straight away. Let’s see if she’s lame on a circle.”

What do you say then? I didn’t want to say, “Are you an idiot? That horse is limping like crazy!” Especially since I was there as an observer and not an active participant. One of my strong points is lameness and a lot of people have trouble with it so it is not at all unusual for me to see things that don’t jump out at other people.

Then she did all kinds of weird things that I don’t understand. Then the horse was trotted again. She was still really lame but on the other hind leg this time. It is not unusual to clear up one leg only to find that the other one is affected too. It just didn’t seem as bad because they were limping on the other one more. They declared her much improved. Okay. She was improved on one leg. I’ll give them that.

I wish the vet would have explained more what she was doing. I would love to do acupuncture. I don’t use my chiropractic alot but it changed the way I looked at animals after I took the course. Acupuncture would do the same thing. I would like to learn it just for my own use. The one thing that I always wished I could do though was animal communication like the Pet Psychic. I only need to be able to ask one question – What’s wrong? I could be the best vet ever.

Then the horse owner came to my house to try to fix Prize’s saddle. I think we have an answer but I’ll have to ride her to find out.

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