End of Tax Season and The Bird Wars Update

Hallelujah!! Tax season is over! No more lunatics and sniping, sparring (even spitting and frothing) CPA's and accountants to deal with. The office is basically a morgue, my boss is out of the country, and I don't have a ton of things to do this week. I can look busy and do a lot of low-brain-rent work or even nothing but read blogs and surf through fun Wikipedia articles. What a huge relief. It is such a hugely busy time and generates so much income for our business, but it is a happy day when April 15th arrives. And apparently I missed quite the booze-fueled karaoke party that lasted well into the evening of the 15th. Yikes.

Hummingbird Wars Update
So we did break down and buy another hummingbird feeder. The Guardian immediately claimed it, as well as the first one, but not even he can do all the work it takes to guard them both. We now have quite a few regulars, and some of them are even smart enough to divert the Guardian while the others sneak in. And we think the Guardian has met his match in a female who just refuses to be chased off, and even occasionally cusses him out and sends him away with head bowed. The activity is at its height around the hour before dusk, as everyone wants to get his fill to survive the night's rest. Having done some research, I found that hummingbirds go into a state of torpor to survive the night--their metabolism is so high that they must essentially hibernate each night, bringing their heart rate and body temperature down so as to not use up their body's energy reserves. They depend on the heat of the morning to wake up each day. It's a dicey life, and probably why they are so protective of their food sources.

The biggest event in the last few weeks was the hummingbird rescue. The feeders are hanging on the sides of our tack room, which is a converted 20-foot shipping container, with an added porch, window, and door. One of the feeders is right next to the door, and with all the swooping and diving, they are so fast that they don't always (apparently) look where they're going. During the time we're at the barn, we unlock our tackroom and always leave the door open. One afternoon a few days ago, E went into the tackroom to get something and I heard her yell, "Oh my God what kind of giant bug is that on the window?!?!" followed immediately by "It's a HUMMINGBIRD!" Since we are seasoned spider, bee, and ladybug rescuers, we immediately got a small bucket and stiff piece of paper and were able to get her into said bucket with very little fuss and no injury. She wasn't happy about it but did fly away when we opened the bucket outside. Operation Rescue was a success.

Otherwise, we just sit and watch them when we are taking a break and it's a lot of fun to see who comes, who's new, who's chasing whom, and to just marvel in the colors of these feisty little birds. We love the outside life and the all the fun of the horses, but this adds another dimension, and we do enjoy the mini-soap opera. So far I have not had to take out a loan for the sugar supply, but now that word has spread about the feeders, we are seeing a lot more action and look forward to another chapter of "As the Bird Spins".

Updates as they occur...

Hummingbird Wars

Every barn, like every office, has its share of drama, with different players and factions battling it out for power or resources or whatever they feel is important. Fortunately for us, we don't really have too much human drama at our barn, but there is another soap opera being played out every day as we have been discovering over the past few weeks.

We bought a hummingbird feeder a month or so ago and picked a place for it by the side of our tack room at the barn. We filled it up with nectar and waited for the birds to appear. And waited. And waited. We FINALLY started to see some action last week, the main taker probably a broad-tailed hummingbird, as pictured above. He's absolutely gorgeous, but boy is he territorial. The feeder is partly obscured by the tree next to our tack room, and so he sits on a high wire about 15 or 20 yards away, with just the right view, and watches His Feeder. He hangs out on the wire most of the time and makes regular trips down to drink his fill. Any time another hummingbird tries to stop and use the feeder, The Guardian (as we have come to call him) swoops down at warp speed and chases his rival away. He's rarely out of our sight.

There is one particularly ballsy guy (we call him the Intruder--aren't we clever?) who just tempts fate on a regular basis. He's figured out that he can fly to the feeder from behind the tree and the tack room, and he will quietly sit on one of the feeder's perches (instead of hovering) out of view of the Guardian, and drink his fill until The Guardian figures it out and all hell breaks loose. The humming, swooping, and divebombing is jet-fighter worthy--the Air Force's Blue Angels would be impressed.

Apparently even we are not immune. When my daughter E went to change the nectar on Saturday, The Guardian flew down from his wire and hovered around and in front of her, just a foot or two away, chattering and scolding her the whole time about messing with His Feeder. He only left her alone after she hung the feeder back up. Finally satisfied that all was once again right with his world, he went back up to his wire and started his usual vigil all over again.

It's been fun to watch the battles, but we feel sad that none of the other birds really get the chance to use the feeder. So we've decided that we may have to get another feeder and put it around the corner out of The Guardian's main view. Maybe then the others will be able to share in the nectar bounty. Or maybe we'll have started on the road to hummingbird feeder addiction, deeply in debt to C&H Sugar, end up with a hundred feeders and be featured on Animal Planet's Fatal Attraction show having been swooped to death by starving hummingbirds.

More news from the front as it happens. Film at 11.

Things That Make Me Happy

Do Hearts Get Any Cuter Than This?

Even though it's a busy time of year right now, I just needed to write something to blast the cobwebs out of the brain and keyboard. Life has been pretty ok for a while, and I've been able to feel more appreciative of good things. So, following is a list of things that I love and appreciate:

-- I love the sound of horses in the barn at the end of the day, eating and moving around, knowing everyone is safe and healthy, especially when we've had a great day of rides or lessons. True contentment.

-- I am enjoying my daughter E's final year in high school. No more bills to pay. Private school was very expensive, but worth every dime.

-- It's great to see E have a plan for her life. She's driven and determined, and knows exactly where she wants to go. I know people older than me who don't know what they want to be when they grow up. I'm really enjoying supporting her plan to get there. I expect great things.

-- I love the smell of hot horse after a big workout. Acrid and sharp, yet clean.

-- Ever been in a hay barn? Only filet mignon on the grill smells better than that.

-- Sharp and witty television shows that make me smile. USA has a lot of them (White Collar, Psych, Burn Notice, In Plain Sight), but I love The Big Bang Theory, The Mentalist, Bones, and As Time Goes By. Fun entertainment written and portrayed by people with working brains.

-- Sushi. Nuf said.

-- Air conditioning in August (or any day above 85 degrees). There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I was not born one minute too late. How did people survive before this most amazing of inventions? It's right up there with water heaters and hot showers as far as I'm concerned.

-- A really good bra that fits. If you have any kind of chest, you know what I'm talking about.

-- The drone of a small airplane, especially a bi-plane, on a quiet summer afternoon. I loved this sound as a kid, and still do.

-- The opening credits of Top Gun, where Kenny Loggins is singing "Highway to the Danger Zone" and the big fighter jets are coming and going from the aircraft carrier. It's such a testosterone kind of scene, with the roar of the planes and all the male posturing, but it just makes me want to go WOOF! That movie was full of eye candy. Umm umm good.

-- Clean sheets on my giant king-sized bed. Followed by sleeping in on Saturdays.


What's on your list?

Coming up to the Surface for Air

Finally. A breather.

The computer project from hell is done. Tax season is in full swing and I'm just now getting most of the everyday things of my usual job routine back under control. The horse business will shortly be getting a lot busier to get ready for show season, and E has a new horse coming for a trial period.

The computer project was a very intense job for four-plus months and seemed to consume my every waking moment. It did not go smoothly from the very beginning. At the beginning of October, we ordered fifteen custom-designed computers from IBM at a cost of about $21,000, and we wired them the money to pay the bill. We found out two weeks later that because of a slight difference in the price (sales tax or a substituted option--I never did know exactly what it was), the final total was a bit more ($70) than we had originally wired. Without telling anyone, including our IBM sales contact, the IBM Credit department cancelled the entire $21,000 order because we "didn't pay the final total". I only found out when I called our sales rep to find out the status on the order, and that's when he discovered what had happened. My boss went ballistic, and I can't tell you how many IBM higher-ups I spoke with to get everything corrected. The order had to be re-submitted, and it set the whole project back a month. It was just a nightmare, and that set the tone for the rest of the my time since.

The follow-up with the staff on not only new hardware but a new operating system (Windows 7) has been a learning curve for one and all. Let's just say that not everyone is doing well with this, and one staff member in particular should just retire, and put us all out of our misery. She actually should have retired a long time ago, but this change has brought into sharp relief just how much her skills have degenerated. It's sad, but mostly frustrating, as everyone is stuck dealing with her, and our partners have their heads in the sand about the situation and won't force the issue. Bad for overall morale.

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On the busy but happier side, we are gearing up our horse business. E (the internet scouring queen) found a horse that we went to see last weekend. (The horse in the photo on the left above.) He jumps up to five feet, and has the potential to take her to new heights (no pun intended). We're picking him up this weekend to start a trial for a few months to see if he is truly going to be her next horse for showing. He's really big (17.3 hands which is 5' 11" tall at the shoulder), and has a nice temperament and attitude. He just needs fitness and work. We are cautiously optomistic that he will be able to do the job that E needs him to do.

The other fun job is getting my client's horse (in the photo on the right above) ready for showing for this year. She had a spay operation done in December and is now ready to go back to real work. We love to get ready to show--it's great to have specific goals and dates to work towards. It helps refine your plans and training schedules, and since we live where there is no real winter, we can do this all year long, but spring here (like everywhere else) is when most show circuits get into full swing. We're looking forward to this process and enjoying all the fun that goes along with it.

I am going to try to get back to more regular posting, but can't promise anything, given the craziness of the season. I hope all is well with you and yours.


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Happy New Year, etc. etc.

Here we are now in January and the crazy holiday life that was December has now morphed into the crazy life that is the beginning of tax season. God, how I hate that phrase.

My day job for the past ten-plus years has been at an accounting firm, and I am the IT/Computer person. When I first started here, it was chaos in the computer department: servers with issues, lots programs that didn't work very well, rampant virus problems, and a hodge-podge of desktop computers that worked (or didn't) on a whim. Over the course of my time at this job, and working with my outside computer tech guru, we completely upgraded all the servers, network hardware, cabling, and staff computers into a well-oiled machine with a standard business approach. It took a few years, but we have a really good setup and almost no down-time EVER. Sad to say that I don't get any credit for it, because as is often the case, if you make the job look easy, people think you're not working very hard and that the network maintains itself.

January is always the beginning of the busiest and craziest time in my office. Most of the employees work hundreds of extra hours over the course of tax season, and it's like watching a bunch of monkeys loose in the library by the time it's over. No one has any patience and tempers are short. May 1 is the Holy Grail, as most of the staff takes a lot of time off after that date, and the office is a lot more pleasant. My job during tax season is usually less busy, as my main focus is just making sure the network is up and running, and people's computers work like they're supposed to. It's still a crazy time and hard on everyone. It's only just beginning and already I want it to be over...

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Feast and Famine at the IEL Horse Show on January 9th, or How Horse Shows Give You an Unparalleled Opportunity to Shine and Fall on Your Face at the Same Time

Got some bragging to do on my kid E and her horse at the IEL show, and then there was the "fall on your face" part--literally.

E entered two timed jumpers classes at the show, one an Optimum Time class and the other a regular 2b jumpers class with a jump off at the end. In the Optimum Time round, you have a certain amount of time allowed to do the course (in this case 68 seconds) and a time they would like you to do it in (the Optimum Time, 64 seconds for this class). The object is to go around the course and not knock any rails down and then get as close to over 64 seconds as possible, but not over 68 seconds--a four second "best window". We watched and studied a bunch of riders who went before E, and figured out where she had to be at what time in order to get close to the mark. She did her ride like a champ, and went for a clean round in 65.120 seconds--an unbelieveably precise ride. We were screaming our excitement when she went through the final timers, and she ended up in third place in the class that had over 40 riders. All the hard work she's done culminated in this glorious ride.

Then we get to the 2b class. E and her horse were doing a great job at the beginning of the ride, but then they came up to a combination and at the second part, he swerved out and away at the very last nano-second and she fell off and into the jump, taking it down to the ground with her. After a quick bout of heart-failure on my part, she looked up and gave everyone the "thumbs up, I'm OK" look, and then asked the closest spectators to remove the jump parts from on top of her so she could go and kill her horse. Unfortunately the fall disqualified her from that class, but she still had the glory of the first class to make her day.

And that, my friends, is what horse showing is all about...

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I hope the new year holds better things for you than last year. We certainly had a very trying 2009 and hope that 2010 puts us on the path to good weather, healthy families, and great rides.