Living Vicariously

Here's an interesting "Nikki" fact...I can't spell to save my life but love words.  I have always loved words and their meanings...just don't ask me to spell them without spell check or Chad!  ( :  So using the word VICARIOUS in my header, is like sooo cool to me!  ( ;  Now on to my storey!!

My sister and I shop for horses a lot.  We mostly window shop, but we shop aggressively.  If we find a horse on Barrel Horse World we like, we will then cross check said horse on Dream Horse, Equuis, Working Horse World,  the website of the farm selling the horse, and any other site we can think of.  We LOVE it when the horses price is different from one place to another...it gives us fodder for hours.  Some times we will contact the seller about these discrepancies...most of the time they don't respond, but usually they fix said error.

We also stallion shop just as much.  We pretty much like the same things in our horses.  We differ in that I really like some bling in my ponies and Mindy hates white hair on the body of her horses.  She also doesn't care for blue eyes, I think they look smart.  That is pretty much the only place we differ.  So on one particular baby's daddy shopping day, my sister says to me that she has given something a lot of thought and she needs to know what  I think.  Well of course, I tell her to proceed!  And she comes at me with, "I really want a Dash Ta Fame baby."  Of course I am all for it and ask her who she will be breeding to him.  She says, "well I have decided that Breeze's personality just won't work for it.  She needs to be crossed with a stallions who's get aren't so quirky and I don't know if I am going to keep Chix....so I need to use Tari."  So I ask her if she is serious, and she says as serious as she can be.

I say ,"alright...do you want her to foal at your house or mine?"  She tells me yours of course, she doesn't want to mess around with that stuff...And then she tells me that there is one little problem.  Apparently she contacted the farm that was standing him either last year or the year before and it went no where.  She said the lady she talked to was a flake and she pissed her (Mindy) off instantly.  But he is standing at another farm this year and under another vet, so I need to call and see if his book is still open.

Being the good older sister that I am, I got on the phone that very day.  Yes, they still had a few breedings left.  They were closing his books at 200 mares and Dr. Swyers figured that they should be full around the middle of January.  I said, wow rush me out a packet please.  As he was taking my name and address, he asked me where in Idaho Athol was.  I told him Northern Idaho Panhandle...we aren't too far from Canada.  He said, "Idaho is pretty country.  I worked in Orofino on the Clearwater River for the Forest Service for a few years some time back."  I said, "wow small world, I grew up in Weippe, just above Orofino and the Clearwater River."  He said, "Wow, it IS a small world."  And he rushed me my packet out via e-mail that very day, accompanied by a very nice note.  Super nice man, too bad Mindy didn't call him herself!!

The funny thing about Tari's paperwork is that although she is mine, its all in Mindy's name.  Now if I ever get around to blogging about Tari I will tell you how Mindy bought her as a barrel prospect in Dingle Idaho, and how we laughed our butts off as we drove from Athol to Dingle and then Dingle to Athol...I'll tell you about this great woman Becky, who Mindy bought Tari  from.  And how Becky had planned to put her in barrel training, but decided to sell her as she and her husband were remodeling their house and needed money for the remodel.  I'll even post a link to Becky's family farm...and her brother-in-law's place, too.  Then I will tell you about how Mindy fell in love with Boney, only her name was Ruth when Mindy found her.  I will tell you how Fred told Mindy sell one of the others first, then you can have that other mare...and how I had told Chad after returning from (Mindy) buying Tari, that if my sister ever sold that mare I HAD to have her...and how I bought Tari on time from Mindy (because I didn't have the money in pocket for her) so that Mindy could buy Boney. (Money wasn't an issue for my sister, space was at that time.)  Then I would tell you how I just didn't feel right transferring the horse's paperwork until I had paid her completely off...and even though I did it a year ago last October, I some how never got that paperwork to the AQHA and luckily now this will save my sister some paperwork when her baby gets here!  I will tell you all of that when I get around to blogging about Tari in the next week or so!!  ( :

So I filled out all the paper work with Mindy's help of course and faxed it over to Smart Ranches.  Dr. Swyers called me about an hour later to say, that he had received the fax and if it was alright he would bill the credit card for the booking fee.  I told him "let 'er rip!"  ( :  So there you go, just when I was wondering what kind of stories I could tell you all as time wore on, Mindy comes in and saves the day!!  As our little journey to making a Dash Ta Fame loves Tari baby moves along, I will fill you all in!  ( :  I will take pictures if and when I remember.  I will also ask Dr. Peters if he can put the ultra sound pictures on a zip drive for me so that I can show 'em to you all!  ( :  I have asked him to put other pictures hes taken on a zip drive for me...and he's done it!!  He rocks!!  Although I am not too sure he doesn't think I am nuts...but I am okay with that!!

So now you know how I am living vicariously...its through my sister!!  Next maybe I can talk her into a Fire Water Flit colt...or grand colt...thats a barrel horse line I'd like to have in the family!!  ( :