An end of an era...maybe...?

When I  was  8 years old, my dad took me and some family friends horseback riding at Weldon Stables for my birthday.  For the next year or so, we went there often...sometimes a couple of times a month.  We (dad, brother and me) even once rented some horses for 2 hours and rode them to our house.  Then we discovered another nearby stable, Papago, and decided to give them a try.  For whatever  reason, we started  riding more frequently at Papago and during that time, Weldon closed.  

Over the past 30 some odd years, Papago managed to stay in operation, even when the new freeway was built that passed right by and the lake district moved in.  The original plans were supposed to include  the  stable, but then the developers changed their minds for whatever reason.  I don't  know  that they were ever given a reason  why they were  no longer included.

Even with the new high rise buildings and shopping areas going up around the lake and stables, Papago still held on...until they couldn't  anymore.  Yesterday  my brother showed me a picture from a Facebook  group he was in that showed the land where Papago was and told me they were gone.  Not believing it, I  got on the internet to look for something saying they'd  closed.  Oddly enough, other than their  website no longer being active, I  couldn't  find  anything.  Not even on their Facebook  page.  Did they  just  quietly  close up shop?  They were also a boarding facility so I'm  sure  the horse owners who boarded there were given some kind of notice, but why is there nothing online about it?  Since I  was  unable to find anything, I  decided to go look for myself after work today since I  live about a mile away and what I  found was a major bummer

If you enlarge the aerial  photo you'll  see the two posts on the edge of the stable's property.  When I   got home I  looked  them up again on Facebook  and  it said they were open until 8pm so I  decided to call them to see if maybe they'd  simply moved.  After 6 or 7 rings I got a recording... "Papago Riding Stables is closed until further notice."  What a major bummer.  I'm  still  wondering, though, how come there's  nothing  online  about  them closing, even if it's  only temporary.  Hopefully they'll  be  able  to  find a new location and re-open.  There's  so few rental stables left in the Phoenix Metropolitan  area  that any of them closing is a huge blow.

It's  been  many years since I've  ridden  there.  Probably  not  since I  was  babysitting  the  owner's grandson and went for a ride afterwards  and had the horse try to remove my leg from my body.  Hahahaha.  Regardless, there was always something  so comforting  driving on Curry Road and seeing horses up on the hill

The stable was on the south side of Curry and the majority of the trails was on the north side and the only way to get across the road was through a large pipe that ran underneath the road

The above photo was taken on the north side, heading back to the stables.

I don't  know  how  long it took to get the horses used to going through the tunnel...the trail didn't  always involve it...but I  never was on a horse that had issues going through it

All of the photos, except the 2 construction  ones, are from their Facebook  page.

As I  mentioned above, hopefully  they are just trying to find a new location and will be open for business soon.  Of course, I  have  no idea when they  even closed so it might be a fruitless  thing to hope for.

A blog I follow, Jennifer Buxton of Braymere  Saddlery, is having a scavenger hunt on her blog.  I  took  some  pictures  yesterday  but  I  need  to  get better  ones.  Hopefully  the  images I  have  in my head will  have the reaction I'm  looking  for, which is laughter.  Stay tuned here for my entry.

I may be crazy, but I'm not insane...

Or am I?  There is a thread on Blab that someone started in August asking us how we "keep it sane"...basically, how do we keep from buying every HSO in sight.  Do we only collect certain scales, certain breeds, certain sculpters or maybe by setting a certain price point and not spending above that.  Over the months, the thread has taken on a life of its own with conversation swinging from Dr Who to who is Polish and how to pronounce names to hair types but it always goes back to horses.  Sometimes people go to the tjread to be "talked down" from buying something while other times people go and share how "bad" they've  been.  Lately the topic of conversation has been  about "sulk buying"...buying something else when you were unsuccessful with buying something more specific.  Sometimes we are very "in your face" and brag about what we've  ended up buying and other times we are more hesitant and "hide in shame" but it's  all good fun.

This evening I got an email from Stone Horses about new offerings.  They will be having 3 new patterns: Overo, Tobiano and Appaloosa

I like the Tobiano, but I'm still thinking on the Appy.  The spots are rather blotchy-looking to me.  They're  also offering 2 new facial markings: broken blaze and medium snip

2015 Thus Far...

Here we are , a little more than 2 weeks into the new year.  We finally got the chain link fence in the backyard fixed so the dogs can't  get  out and the neighbors aren't  complaining to the city about the assortment of items leaning up against it to cover up holes.  It's  amazing  how  small  of an area a 75 pound dog can squeeze out of.  If both get out, it takes awhile to get them back.  They stay together, but if one starts running so does the other.  They're  incredibly close and can probably be likened to human twins, even though they are only littermates  and not twins.  If only one dog gets out, though, she's  usually easier to get back inside.

On New Year's  Day I headed to a town almost 2 hours to the north.  The Village of Oak Creek and Sedona.  The area is famous for its red rocks and vortexes.  One of the vortexes, near Bell Rock, was supposed to have energy surrounding the entire area rather than just in a certain spot, so I  went  looking  for  that.  There were supposed to be Juniper trees with branches that grow twisted because of the energy.  I chose NYD because it was supposed to snow NYE and the next morning and I  wanted to go see snow.

I took the picture with my cell phone so it's  a little darker than it actually was.  It was snowing quite a bit, which I  loved.  It's  wonderful  having  a reliable enough car that I  can  just go to where the snow is.  I didn't  see any twisted Junipers nor feel any energy, but I  don't  know  that  I  was really  expecting to.  Hahaha.  The trip wasn't  without it's  excitement, though.  In the distance I  could see an area where it looked to be snowing heavily and it looked so cool with the red rocks and I  wanted  a  picture  so I  tried  to  find  a spot  to pull over and take a picture.  Some of the merchant parking lots hadn't  been  plowed  yet and I  didn't  want  to  get stuck so I  turned  down a road that seemed mostly  plowed.  And it was.  For the most part.  I was driving along just fine, but then the road started going up an incline and the snow was getting deeper.  And then I  couldn't  go any further.  I couldn't  go forward.  My tires kept spinning.  I tried not to panic and kept trying to go forward in 'drive' and 'low' but nothing seemed to work.  I could, however, go backwards so I  did that.  I drove down backwards  until I  could  get turned around and get going forward.

Work has been going well.  Pretty busy, but then there were a couple of days when there was very little to do and I  left early on one of those days.  Fortunately it was short-lived and things got busy again.

Last week I suffered  a personal tragedy.  I took one of my cats, my red tabby Royal, to the vet.  They were going to run blood tests, take x-rays and schedule him for an ultrasound  because the vet thought he felt a mass in his abdomen that worried him.  They were going to send the blood out for testing but they decided to do a glucose test and his levels were so high their machine wouldn't  even  register it.  My baby had diabetes.  The vet said, though, that was only one of several  problems and while it was treatable, the other things he might have likely  were not going to be, but it was too soon to tell.  He said he would like to treat the diabetes, but... well, I  couldn't  put him through twice daily injections and vet visits every two weeks until they got it under control plus side affects.  As much as it killed me, I  had to do what I  thought was best.  The first few days afterwards  was very difficult and I'm  still working on the guilt, but I  know  it was the right thing.  Especially when I read on a blog that I  follow the problems she has with her dog that has diabetes.  I have a friend whose  dog has it also and it's  amazing  what  they do for their furr-babies.  How much they love them for doing it.  I  don't  know  if Temecula  realizes Royal isn't  coming  back, but he seems to really enjoy the extra attention  he's  getting

I will get another cat down the road.  I think  Temecula  would  like  the company while I'm at work.  He and Royal were together almost 10 years so I  think  he'll  enjoy the company.  We will see.  I haven't  touched  my writing notebooks in more than a week.  Just haven't  felt like it.

Tickets for Breyerfest went on sale this past week and I  bought a Child's  3  day.  I won't  be  going  but  it's  nice  having  tje ability to buy left-overs and I  can  sell  the  ticket  itself  as it gets  closer  to  BF when people are looking  for  extras.  I did it last year  and it  worked  out  nicely.  Breyer has also released  the first  models  for Breyerfest and the one I  want  most  is the Early Bird Raffle model, but you have to be present to win.  Bummer.

Today is day 2 of a 3 dy weekend.  I was going  to  go horse hunting but decided to spend it with Temecula.  I spent the morning with my mom then the afternoon  with him, watching movies on SyFy.  I also got some shelves put up and new models finally out of their boxes

I'm  sorry the pictures  are so dark but I  used my cell phone and it'snot  so good in lolight.

Well, I  need to go.  If you're  still  around, thank you.