Just another day in paradise...

So summer is almost over. The leaves are starting to turn on the oak trees, and I am soaking up every last ray of sunshine in an effort not to forget what it's like. I do enjoy winter, but I like snow much better than rain and it hardly snows in Corvallis. Although I'm sure I'll have more to add to the list after next weekend (The Pendleton Round Up!), here are some highlights from this summer:

-driving my uncle's car in Bredene and Oostende without killing it once

-Gabby finally turning into a sweet riding horse, and getting her first pair of shoes so I could ride her up the road

-riding all over Davis Creek Road with Walt (Luna having shoes!)

-working equine ambulatory medicine for the second summer

-4th of July at the Grahams/playing at the skeleton house up Bridge Creek

-Chief Joseph Days! BBQ at the lake house and the rodeo

-being in Wallowa County just about every weekend

-riding up Bear Creek Trail to the Eagle Cap Wilderness Boundary with Patrick and Vanessa

-attending the Stock Grower's Dinner and Dance in Enterprise with Vanessa, Jamie, and Jeff (plus watching the boys play in the band and learning the Horseshoe)

-sitting on those Wallowa evenings around the fire in the driveway

-having Carolyn visit the farm and her first ride on Rosie

-helping at Beckijo and Sweyn's rehearsal dinner which consisted of great deep-fried turkeys (thanks to Charlie and Casey) and partying out at the arena trying to chute dog steers

-eating deep fried grouse!

-going to Beckijo and Sweyn's wedding

-having a fun family dinner at Ember's in Joseph

-driving out to the top of Tick Hill at midnight with an awesome CD that included some great songs by Dispatch, Llama, Fountains of Wayne, Gin Blossoms, and many more

-driving a BMW Z3 up to 90 in a few seconds!

-going dog sitting in Scotts Mills

And there's probably a lot more I can't think of now...

All in all, this summer was all of these things: a brilliant, trying, hot, wonderful, beautiful, and amazing learning experience.

Working in veterinary medicine you meet the best of people and the worst of people. Trust me, I understand that sometimes you can't afford to put hundreds or thousands of dollars into a horse because it will mean going broke. And I totally understand that vets can't just work for free. The profession can't advance if vets are going broke themselves taking care of animals whose owners won't pay for procedures. That's what makes these inevitable situations so horrible. Stuff like this happens ALL the time.

Case in point: A man has a 1 month old colt. He calls in and says the horse broke it's leg, and he can't afford to have any vet care but he wants to bandage it himself. He says that every time the horse steps on the leg, it folds sideways underneath him--the bone is severed. He has put a small bandage on it, but the leg still moves like that. He says he wants to get his friend at the local hospital to give him some cast material and cast it. Unfortunately, he doesn't realize that casting the leg will rot it and cause the horse to die from a horrible infection. The suggestion is made to euthanize the poor animal. However, the man wants to try to save the colt. (And he doesn't have the money to euthanize it, anyway.) He wants to bandage it, then, since casting won't work, yet he doesn't seem to listen to the correct way to do it. He also doesn't believe that simply bandaging the leg won't save the horse from hours of pain and serious infection. He says he's going to do what he can, and hangs up. A 1 month old colt will live for days or even weeks, especially if it is just strong enough to fight off infection. In three or four days, if the horse isn't dead, the man will get tired of bandaging the leg (because it is, in fact, not as easy as it looks) and he will shoot the horse in the head. The sad thing? The horse will have suffered all day and all night for those excruciating days. And if it survives, the leg will never set right and he will be lame forever.

The man should have just saved the trouble and shot it when this happened, save us all the pain.

I think my life is finally complete because I have actually seen a Pacific Yew tree now. A few, actually.

I am quite pleased with myself, because I had a pretty amazing weekend in Wallowa County. Highlights include the stock growers' dinner and dance, Terminal Gravity and Shooters, and riding up the Bear Creek Trail to the wilderness boundary--also, hanging out with my most amazing friends and family dinners around the fire under the setting sun.

I am back here in the valley for the next week and a half, at which point I'm back in Wallowa for a wedding. It will be crazy fun, and I hope the weather holds. Then back to the valley for just about another week and a half that will include more house-sitting for Dr. Caldwell and the last days of trail riding my horses for the summer (because their shoes will be coming off)--only to turn around again for the Pendleton Round Up, which will also be wild and crazy fun. Then: school. Eek. Summer disappeared so fast!

So you really know that things are nuts when you have to make sure your car doesn't get bombed in Salem! Of all the places to have pipe bombs...

Lordy, I'm tired. This morning I drove Anne-Sophie to the airport in Portland at 4:30, and this is generally not all that early except I didn't go to bed until after midnight because I was up talking to Patrick--and it's hard to say goodbye. I don't regret it, obviously, but that's not all that much sleep. So I got back to Silverton around 7:00, had breakfast, and left for work in Scotts Mills. Embarrasingly, I missed the turn for the road and ended up going like three miles out of the way, but I got there eventually. The dogs greeted me and I walked up to the barn, where Lynn told me that we had no appointments! Well, at least I had a nice drive out there. And I was back home at 8:30, watched the end of an "ER" episode, and promptly went back to sleep until about half an hour ago. Now I'm watching "Felicity." I love this show.

Yeah, so that's my day so far. Exciting, right?

I think I'm quite possibly one of the happiest people right now, except for the fact that I miss everything about Wallowa and wish I could be there right now.

Happiness will be compounded, though, by the simple fact that I'll be there next Thursday! It's only a week and a half, right? I can survive.

Somehow someone convinced me to ditch basically all of my responsibilities (such as getting hay) and go to Portland with my mom and Anne-Sophie instead. It started off as a little bit of an annoying trip, because my mom somehow seemed to forget all of her previous knowledge of actually how to drive in Portland...so we had a very interesting drive up to Council Crest that consisted of me saying something and then her realizing seven to ten minutes later what I actually said. That, or coming to the same conclusion herself in that amount of time and not even recalling that I said a thing. But the day turned for the better when we met friends Ken and Petra for dinner. I really enjoy spending time with the both of them, and they made me glad that I decided to go. Next weekend they are going to come out to the farm. My mom is going to pick blackberries while Petra and I ride, and then when we get back they are going to make preserves. Sounds very down home, huh? It is, and will be fun. Today Walt and I are going up to Scotts Mills to fix Lynn's wireless before we ride. I don't really know what else to say, other than that it's COLD outside. I don't think it's even 50 degrees right now.

The boys are back. I find it amazing how one person can make you feel so complete when you are in contact and so incomplete when you are apart. Seven days never felt like so long!

Work today was good. An easy dental and an easy colic and easy vaccines. All very relaxed, and I like it when it's like that. The weather has turned weird and fall-like, and I'm not sure if I enjoy it. I was getting used to it being warm.

Somehow, I'm not tired, even though I spent the better part of the 12:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. hours awake and enlivened by lovely conversation...and had to get up at 7:00 to go to work. I'm happy...just, so insanely happy. Maybe I'll have time to crash later.

Wow, so this makes three entries today. I guess I'm on an LJ kick.

It's so hard to miss someone. It hurts so bad.

That's all I wanted to say.

I spent so much time today convincing myself I was going to build this gate the right way that I built it backwards.

Figures.

Now I have to fix it.

So I know I've been a crappy updater these last few weeks...possibly even months. It's hard to pay attention to this, it seems, although I know that in the future I will want to look back on these entries and read them. Sometimes I am just so exhausted that I just don't want to write about what happened in the day. Perhaps it's also because I've let some things go on without writing for so long that it would take pages and pages of entries to explain.

What's been going on then? The grass seed fields are ablaze and the air is hazy, which affects my allergies and thus my mood. The horses are doing really well, though, and we are having a great time this year riding around the house. My work schedule has been insane an erratic, broken by family tragedies on Dr. Caldwell's side, slow business then fast business, and my need to drive to Corvallis what seems like every two minutes. (Since Corvallis is an hour and a half away, if I have to go and it takes all day or half a day, then I miss the boat on working in the morning.) It's been interesting when I do work, but I've been at home more than out. Not that that's a bad thing. It seems like around here there is twice the work there has ever been around the farm, and I am doing almost all of it. My parents seem to not really care about the things that really matter. They would rather do small projects in the garden than anything, so I have rebuilt the inside of the old barn, weeded the entire pasture, fixed the fences, and moved piles of bark chips without their help. And taken care of the horses. So you can see why I'm tired, even though working is one of my favorite things to do. It makes me feel so amazing. And it's funny, because even if one is online every day, that doesn't necessarily mean that you want to post to LJ. Somehow it seems like more work, which is weird.

The weekend before last I drove out to Wallowa to visit Casey and Patrick. I spent Friday with them, and we went out to Wallowa Lake and to Chief Joseph Days and had a good time. The next morning I drove up the 3 to Moscow, Idaho...that was quite a drive, canyons and all...to visit Allie. I had a great time, there, too, but at the end of the weekend I'd driven 1000 miles and it tired me out a lot more than I expected. I guess I have much more energy during the school year, because driving to CA and back didn't seem to poop me out as much--although this driving was a little harder.

Now Anne-Sophie is here, which is the most awesome thing ever, so we are doing a lot of driving around and visiting things. This does, however, begin the enormous cascade of guests that will be coming through here for the next two months. I actually don't think we will have one night to ourselves. I will have a chance to escape, though, because I'll be out in Wallowa again in two weeks. Anyway, that's about all I've got to say for now. It does feel good to update every once in a while...haha.

And so, here I am. This has been a week from hell, in many ways. But I've come to a decision, and I think it's a really good one, and I'm really happy with it.

I like people who make me feel special. And he does...

AWESOME weekend.

It pretty much rocked the world beyond belief.

Updated pictures: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/reel_cowgirl/my_photos

Writing makes me happy. I just wrote the end to a book. Haha, now all I have to do is write the beginning! I think it's helped that recently people have been interested in my writing. Funny thing. I feel so out of practice.

Oh, and I've been updating my photo albums. Check it out: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/reel_cowgirl/my_photos

My parents are going to a military funeral on Friday. The only reason I'm not going is that I'll be in Wallowa, but either way it would probably be more than I could really handle. Some things hit too close to home.

He was the husband of one of my mom's students, and he only had a few more months to go...and in case you didn't know, my mom is very close with her students. They are always over at the house.

But the point of this was to say that no one can mention the location of the funeral in writing for fear of war protestors. Now, I don't really care what you think, but ruining a funeral? Have some respect. Of all the idiotic things...

I have to say that I am sick and tired of trying for people who don't want to be interested in anything in the world. I am tired of apathy. I just don't understand how anyone could be bored out here in the summertime. There is so much to do, at least so much beauty to appreciate! I'm not generally very sapppy, but it's really true. I would die if I had to live in the city. As much as I love New York and I feel like I fit there, I could never live there.

I belong out here, where my hands are always dirty from hard work (not to mention my feet, which take a beating on the creek rocks and gravel roads!) and I can ride forever without seeing anyone but the neighbors hauling a load of hay up to feed their colts. I need to be able to see the mama cows licking their calves as they stand under the oak trees for shade in the back hay field. Even Corvallis gets to me some days. And I was in Salem for the greater part of yesterday, and I actually spent about an hour at the mall. This was where it hit me mostly, because I absolutely hate malls. And traffic. And so many people whose only cares in the world are their outfits and makeup. Now don't get me wrong, I do like clothes and getting dressed up, but it's not the most important thing in the world for me.

This got me thinking that I also don't understand what the deal is with people who don't want to work for anything, who care more about themselves and their problems than the horses out in the field who depend on us for care, people who just expect everything to be done for them instead of doing it themselves. This is where I have been drawing the line lately, because I've been getting closer and closer to other people who actually aren't like that. Yes, they exist. I'm shocked.

This week has given me a lot of time to think, mostly because I am not working. Another girl who comes from California every summer to ride along with Lynn is here, and I decided it was too stressful for the four of us (me, this girl, the tech, and Lynn) to all squeeze into the truck when I've got things I can do around here and will be working the rest of the summer. So here I am, avoiding the heat by swimming up the Abiqua, washing my trailer (ugh, and it needs to be waxed, too...this takes about a week, but it is my trailer and worth it to keep it nice), riding the horses, and fixing what needs to be fixed. Two of my friends work all day and my other two close friends are working for 4 days overnight clearing trails in the wilderness. So along with not working, I also have to keep myself busy to stop from missing these people. (It's funny how they can do that to you.) So I'm cleaning a lot, as I do when things are often a little out of hand...

I can't wait 'til Thursday. And Friday, of course...

It's 110 out. But you know what I love about the mountains? It will be cold tonight. And while it will be really hot this weekend, Monday's high is an awesome 82, and the rest of the week will be like normal summer: high of 75 everyday. I love Oregon.

I have a place to live in Corvallis!!! I am so excited! I have to pay August rent even though I won't move in until the middle-end of September(ugh), but it's worth it because this place is nice. And quiet. And right next to the wetlands, which are quiet and full of birds. Plus the place is spotless. I am thrilled.

In other news, the rest of the world still sucks. We heard from everyone in Haifa and they are all fine, but it sucks. Yeah, that's just about what I'm gonna say.

Sometimes a bunch of things hit you really hard a one time, even though you have known about these issues for a while and shouldn't be surprised to see them surfacing. I can't go to Fort Collins anymore.

I hold out hope, though, that I will have a good few days next weekend.

Wallowa. Enterprise. Moscow.

Wallowa. Enterprise. Moscow.

Just keep tellin' myself, and it'll all be good. It will be, because I have an awesome friend who is always there to help me and I can't even begin to describe how much he means to me. It's surprising who life throws at you sometimes, but it's usually pretty good.

In two weeks:

Wallowa. Enterprise. Moscow.

Outta the valley!

In three weeks:

Fort Collins. 'Nuff said.