The Journey

For the past month, I haven’t really thought about Guardian Oasis. This last weekend I took a trip into the past and drove up to Poulsbo to visit with Ardy Germaine from Germaine Stables. When I lived up there in 2004 I boarded two Arabians with her. Back then there were many horses in her barn, almost to many and yesterday she made a comment that at one time she had thirty two horses on the property at one time. Now she has four on her property that I saw, possibly a couple more, and a few horses at her daughters place where she shows in Colorado. I always trusted Ardy to be honest with me regardless of what was going on and despite how bad the market was, she still talked about it as if she would still be doing it. I understand that she’s on her way to retiring from the horse industry. They have no stallions, they don’t breed anymore, they bought a place in Texas and she wants me to buy her 2 year old mare that is by a stallion she waited 20 years to breed to. I can tell she still loves her horses, but it’s obvious she doesn’t want to continue the way she was four years ago when I met her.

After speaking with Ardy I took a trip over to the barn that I kept my Arabians at before hers. I don’t know what I expected to see when I drove over there. She had always said all these things she was going to do in order to get what she wanted, she always sounded like she had a plan and she knew exactly what she was going to do to get there. Well, I was surprised when I drove past her place, I figured she’d at least have a couple horses like Ardy did, or something. But there was nothing, nothing I could see. No evidence that there were horses there at all, not even a pile out the back where the shavings were. It was almost depressing to see and yet I was relieved in a way… It was a very different feeling. I wanted to sit there and just stare at what I thought would’ve been a nice facility when I returned but knowing someone might drive up and confront me wasn’t a comforting thought, so I drove off.

Despite how much I tried, I couldn’t stop thinking about what’s been going on in the horse world. In order for me to do the things that I want to do, I have to think of a new way to do it. Truth be told, there are enough horses on the market right now that anyone could own an awesome horse for close to nothing and someone could get a bad horse for free. The question is finding a way to do this, without pushing myself into something that I can’t get out of.

We have been thinking about this for about a month now in regards to exactly what we plan to do with the business. The horse industry is HORRIBLE right now and the idea of starting a full blown horse facility and expecting to turn horses is ridiculous. Although after talking with a few people, I've come to the conclusion that I have to take advantage of the situation and purchase things while things are cheep, while people are trying to make a buck and while I have the investor to do it. This IS a one time opportunity to change my life and get the one and only thing I've ever wanted in the world. So…. How am I going to do this?

Well after posting my last posting about not starting the facility and having a breakdown (almost) I took the time to rethink exactly what I wanted to do. I want to have a barn full of world known Arabian horses and I want to be known in the horse world. I want to train, show and breed (a select few) Arabian horses and when I die, I want the Arabian Horse Association to post a huge article on how I impacted the horse world. Yep. That's what I want to do. Over the past fifteen years I've had the opportunity to watch some of the best people and some of the worse both up close and from afar and one thing I've noticed about them all is that they are all struggling. And in this time when people are threatening recessions and what not, it's only going to get worse for some, and better for others.

The problem with this is that while the economy is low, I have to be able to sustain myself and get this all going. I understand that Jerry has agreed to get everything started and going for some time, but it is quite the expensive thing. I've been entertaining the idea of investing in some rental properties, stocks and what not while things are low costs using some of the money that Jerry is investing in the business. This is the most intelligent thing I can think of and the only thing that I can think off that will bring immediate payback. Well along with a job. The rich will be able to afford board and everything but the rich will want to go to the best and because of my unproven history in the show ring, I'm definitely last on their list.

In regards to the dog thing….I love dogs, I really do and for about five years of my life I trained them and I loved them. But I can't help to think that I'm trying to do to much, that I'm asking for to much and the more I think about doing both. The more I see myself overworking myself and getting overwhelmed.

I told Jerry when he asked me about the horses that I would give anything in my life to train, show and breed horses for the rest of my life, and over the past 16 years I've managed to try to pull myself away from them and it never seems to fail that here I am, looking at photos and plans and dreaming of that day when I'm a star. So back to me regularly scheduled program… I guess.

We have rather large news.

Earlier this month we were approached by a man who was interested in helping us invest in our business of Guardian Oasis. We were very ecstatic about the whole situation and contacted many people in regards to purchasing their horses and property and what not.  But as time continued by we started wondering what exactly was it that we wanted to do with our horses and no matter what we came up with, we kept changing our minds. The name "Guardian Oasis" has gone from horses, dog training, pet store and back to horses.

What is the future of Guardian Oasis?

Because the economy of the United States is dropping dramatically, it just is not economical for us to breed and sell horses. We do plan on purchasing property to keep horses on possibly building a small barn to board horses and probably taking in horses for rescues or to resell. But as for our future as a big barn, we've dropped it. We still plan on keeping our stallions and studding them out to people who would like to breed and showing them in the local class A, Regional and National shows but have no desire to get big. It's just not smart to try to start a business right now in the horse industry. And I've excepted that. I can still train horses.

What are our plans?

Because the horse show industry is as thick as it is, we will only be showing horses through professional trainers so that our horses receive the best advertising as possible. As much as I'd like to pretend that I can make a difference. The truth is, I can't right now. Like I stated above, we will continue to have our studs but we will not be breeding to sell or retain foals.

We will slowly be bring back the dogs to Guardian Oasis, the original creator of the name "Guardian Oasis". The name Guardian Oasis was actually created for the rescue group we started years ago. Guardians are what most people think of when they think of their companion animals, Oasis is a place of peace. While we did the rescue, we trained and rehabilitated dogs. We became better known for our training techniques and so we slowly moved into training. Then we had the opportunity to work with the horses and gave up the dogs, which is how Guardian Oasis turned into a horse business.

In summery, Guardian Oasis will be doing a major change in what we plan on doing. Nothing is set in stone on what we exactly want to do. We know we want to keep our studs and still show, train and have horses. But in the same, we want to go back to our dogs. We will continue to keep you updated in our changes.

I went through all the friends on here and deleted most of them, mostly because I don't know them and I don't want them reading my stuff about the horses if I don't know them.

I made my $300 payment to Kriss on Monday to go towards getting Star back. She says his feet need done, they aren't that bad but I'm going to get them done anyway, just because of the fact that I'm hoping to start breaking him to ride next year and so he needs to have good, even feet. I got to look at the filly by Blue Eyed Handsome Man that was Kriss's filly and it's nice... 

I'd write more but I'm tired. 

So I went into Scamps on the 1st because Alex got paid and I wanted to make a payment on his Dragonov... if that's how it's spelled. Anyway, I stopped into Scamps like I always do just to see whats in there. Well there are no rats... not even the naked rats that were in there last time. So, I talked to whatever his name is and he was saying that all his rat breeders are not consistant and that they call and say they will have rats and then they never do... It really sucks considering the fact if you think about it, only about one in every 6 or 7 rats are sold as a pet.... At Petco in the three years I worked there maybe two were sold as pets and I can't tell you how many hundreds of rats we had go through at one time. So, feeling sorry for Scamps, I decided that maybe to earn a little extra cash I would breed rats to sell to them. As time goes by, I'll add other animals to my list of stuff I breed to sell to them. My zebra finches finally figured out how to get into their nest hut yesterday and have started building a nest in it. I don't know what their plans are but I'm looking forward to babies. Anyway below are some photos of the ratties.


This is Angel


This is Sasha


and this is Baxter

They are only babies but they are so cute. A lady in Lacey would like to give me her rat and then theres a lady in Marysville who would like to give me hers. She's got a bunch. The idea behind all this is to start saving money up for the petstore that I would like to start eventually one day. Lots of work a head of us.

Well, the attourney is taking forever to get the stuff taken care of for Star.  Soon it will be $1,200 to get him back from her... It's really irritating, really it is. I'm hoping that I can get something done because it's making me loose sleep.

I don't think I've put the entire thing here, mostly because I've held off from really putting it out there until I knew I could handle the outcome. Back at the beginning of this month I received a letter in the mail from an attorney stating that Kriss had put a notice of lien on my colt (the one in the avatar with the husband) and that I had seven days to come up with $800 or that they would follow through with the lien. Well I tried to contact her attorney and I left messages but none were returned. Finally on that Thursday I went on base to the military lawyer and had them look over the paperwork and he gave her attorney a call. They talked and my attorney said that I would be receiving a call back from him soon. Never happened. On the 19th Kriss emailed me because she wanted to work something out to take care of this bill I owed her. I sent her an email with the options I had and then waited. Yesterday I resent an email asking what she was thinking and today I finally heard something back. Raeven had offered her a breeding to Star's dad valued at $1000 to pay off the bill for Star. Kriss wanted the information about the stallion and I sent it to her. So now I sit here and wait. Wait for an answer that will either make or break me. This whole experience has been really hard on me and almost impossible for me to bare. I've had to find things to do around the house to make sure that I can say focused because I'm fighting to stay un-depressed. 

Here's to good news.

Sorry it's been so long since the last time that I posted in this blog. Unfortunately the future of Guardian Oasis is unknown. We are dealing with legal battles on horses trying to get everyone in the same place. I will be back later to post more. 

 Okay Update!

I'm working on relocating the horses out to Roy to Kathleen's place. We've decided to geld the boys and I'm working with Raeven to get Kathleen and awesome colt she can start the foundation of her breeding program with. We've leased two girls from Raeven to help with this process so we will have three foals next year. I'm doing alright. Things will get easier.

New website
http://www.guardianoasis.com

Well the lady we bought Dream from (Kathleen) stopped by to see her yesterday. I went over to her place after taking care of Tim's horses and talked to her about here horses and my opinion on what to do with them. I was really surprised how receptive she was to my advice. I mean I know that I have been doing this for a while but I've just become so used to people listening to me and shrugging me off that I expected her to do the same thing. So when I left her place yesterday I told her that I would do some more research and that I would get back to her and she told me that she was really looking forward to that. Of course I was shocked but it also gave me a little more since of reality. So tonight I invested a good $10.00 into data source and researched ever single bloodline of her horses to make sure we weren't going to make the wrong decision.

I feel very proud of myself. I was really depressed when Cati decided to desert me. I find it ironic how Cati's real name is Cathleen and so is Kathleen's. Hmmm maybe I had the name right, just the wrong one? Anyway I was depressed because I know that one day I'm going to leave Washington and I was really looking forward to leaving a mark on the Arabian industry before I left. I've also always been a leader and have always wanted to bring someone up to greatness even if it ment me taking longer. So now with Kathleen's desire to start her own program, I've somehow livened back up and am working again towards forward movement.

We are still goig to breed Kaydee to R Audacious Star but for a different reason. Ther is one mare that I am very interested in who has a racing history and another mare who has racing bloodlines. I feel very confident in this new line of work. 

Here are the photos of the boys

Cherokee Marchon


West Wing Cherokee, Cherokee's colt.

So a few days ago Alex and I got to talking about what we were going to do as far as the future of the Guardian Oasis business. As most people know every since I was nine I wanted to own internationally known champion horses. Well for the past two years, more in the past couple months, I haven't felt the show world or have been interested in it. It makes it difficult for me to continue on the path that we are currently on. 

Well I was depressed a couple days ago and started doing some research online about the different avenues of the Arabian horse world that weren't as explored as the horse shows are. I found a whole bunch of information on Competitive trail, Endurance and Arabian Racing. Unfortunately with them being more rare than the typical horse show, we will have to travel further but I've been more interested in this than I have anything else so far!

Yesterday Ucafollothatdream (pictured in the avitar) went down to the vet for a pregnancy check and was confirmed 7 months pregnant. Unfortunately there was no movement in the foal, and the uterus was hard as a rock. Things didn't look good and the vet could not confirm if the foal was alive or dead.

This morning a chestnut foal was found dead with Dream in her stall. It was transported away this morning and Dream seems to be doing okay. She is eating grass with the other mares. But today is a sad day for Kriss and those that live on the property.

So the past couple weeks have been really hard on me. I've signed over both the mares to Kriss. Although she's allowed me to lease Kaydee Bey for a breeding this year. I will be breeding her to Star's dad so that we can get a 2009 foal for Alex. I'm really looking forward to that cross of a horse. They are both awesomely built horses and should produce a champion. I've decided to give up on Dr. Bruskey and his signing a paper stating that Magic Dream Queen miscarried on me for the Arabian Horse Association. So I just lost $440.00. But what's wonderful is that R Audacious Star is sweepstakes nominated, and since I'm very confident in this 2009 foal, I'll dish out the extra $440.00 for this foal plus whatever else I can get it enrolled in. So far he's thrown one colt and one filly so it's really up in the air if it will be a boy or girl.

It's nice to be down to one horse. It's about time that I started focusing on the goal at hand and not the goal that is 10 to 20 years down the road. The truth is, I've got one colt who should be in the ring and he's not. He's not even registered right now. I need him to be registered in order to get him in the show next year. And he will be showing next year if I have to slave my life away at the club to insure it. There's no reason for slacking anymore. I'm breeding one foal this year, I've got to do something to get our name out there because he's finally figured out what his utensil is for and we need to promote him NOW. 

So the businesses that I run again are changing.... yeah I know, when will it ever stop.

We are sticking to our purebred breeding for now. I've decided to ditch the Rabicano and Sabino breeding program that we had been working on simply because I found myself breeding for color, not conformation, and that's bad mmkay. We will NOT be selling ETA Radiant Star as a result of this breeding change as he's an awesome horse and has great potential as a sire, Rabicano or not. As a result, I will also not be creating the Purebred Arabian horses of color registry that I had been working on the past couple months. I've been interested in doing it for a couple years but again, realizing by doing this I'm promoting color breeding which I've been against for many years, I've decided that instead of contradicting myself, I'll let someone else do it. 

In the future we will be adding half-arabians to our herd. We have taken into consideration breeding Half-Arabian Ponies and Fresian Arabian crosses. We are still doing research into these crosses and we don't expect to start the Fresian cross for quite some time, the pony crosses might come sooner. We will be starting our research on the different pony breeds and how they look, their conformation and the such. Hopefully we can find some pony arabians to use as reference to help us with out decisions.

On a side note. We are looking for something to sell to add income to our business as a side project. An idea brought up by my friend was sewing those new costume halters that is a big rage right now. It's been a consideration and I've even thought about possibly making native costumes for the classes. There isn't anyone up here that I know of who makes the costumes, I'm sure a couple people make the halters. But it's on a back burner till I get enough time to research it. Thank god I know how to sew.

On another side note. Kriss, the lady who runs the dog aspect of the business, wants to start a horse rescue so I'm going to help her out with that since I have all the stuff from the IRS on it. Plus I've been reconsidering starting back up my cat/dog rescue. Of course I can't do it right now. But in a few years I can. Or at least I can get started on the paperwork and adopt out a couple cats or dogs a month until I get my own property where I can actually do something about it.

Dream is doing better. I found a small lump (about the size of a nickle) behind her left front leg. It's not hard, its like frozen jelly and it's not attached to the muscle it moves around under the skin. It doesn't bother her but it's there, and since I know it's there, it bothers me. I've called around to a couple vets to get quotes to see if its a cancer and it's kinda pricey so I will be saving up for it. The skin between her front legs are still very scaley but I will be getting some stuff to put on it along with her utter. The skin around her vulva and anus is not as dry as it was and theres not as much scaley skin there anymore. She's walking faster and her joints aren't popping as much as they used to. She's even got a golden glow to her coat now. I'm so excited that she's doing better. We are going to start an excersize program for her soon so she can start building up muscle, expecially in her back so it can stop saging.

Anyway. That's my update.

So there's mud. EVERYWHERE. and when I say everywhere, I mean everywhere. And it's not just dirt mud. It's clay mud and if you've never been in clay mud it's like walking through wet cement. So we are building an emergency shelter for the mares and taking everyone off the pasture and into stalls until we can take this tractor and fix this mess. And that's what it is, a mess. I'm going to have to sit down and plan really hard on where all this will be going before I create more of a mess. 

So first I had the Straight Egyptian colt that was an awesome deal and was going to be cool and then the woman who wanted to find him a home so bad turned all technicality on me then semi freaked out about the contract and backed out. Probably for the better anyway. Then we find this colt who is by Khartoon Khlassic who is sabino, rabicano, and dilute. Awesome! I want to breed to him. So I talked to the lady and she wants me to take him and show him. Not my idea, but whatever. So I write up a contract for her because she doesn't use contracts and I send it off to her. She doesn't like it, we talk on the phone and she agrees that in exchange for me training and showing him, I can breed to my three mares for "free" ooookay. So thats more of a loss for her than for us. Then she starts having second thoughts about that too so I just gave up and told her that I would pay to breed to her stallion. Now I don't even know if I want to.

This year I think I should focus on the important things like shots, deworming, hooves, teeth and showing Star. Not that it wasn't my focus before but there were a couple times I strayed away my scheduled trims or got a couple months off my deworming schedule. I can't do that anymore. This is a business now, not a hobby.

On the lighter side of things, Dream has dropped her belly. She no longer looks pregnant from the infestation of worms she had. Now just to work on her muscle tone and weight. Her feet aren't nearly as bad as I thought they were once I got them cleaned out and looked at them. They are just oddly shaped from many of years of not being trimmed. I talked to a new vet today and we are going to work on getting her ultrasound done and finding out when we should expect a baby from our padron granddaughter. Even if it's just one. BTW that's her in the user pic.

Well I went to the horse show this weekend and was educated a lot. The clinics were very useful yesterday and I was able to learn a lot. Sport horse in hand doesn't look nearly as hard as people have been saying it was but of course I haven't done it yet so I have no idea. I went back to the farm today and was working with Star. His balls have finally dropped and so he's acting up A LOT! So I worked with halter and lunged him and had Kriss and Alex practice walking him around. By the time he was done, he was so pooped he didn't want to rear, buck or kick. Which I'm glad because it's really irritating me. 

I fitted the saddles on Kaydee. The english saddle fits okay. It is angled funny but we didn't have any pads or anything so there is no way I could see if it would fit. Kaydee is slightly sway back so it was angled up on the front because of the withers. When we get some good pads, we will really see. But the headstall fit and I decided to ride her bareback again. Well Alex got to see me fall off a horse of the first time. I did what I do when I practice falling (yes, I practice falling off a horse), I curled in a ball and rolled. It worked really well. I have a bruise on my butt where I origionally hit the ground and a small mark on my cheek where Kaydee's front right ankle clipped my cheek. I layed there for a second in the mud just to make sure I wasn't hurt then got up and climbed on her for a minute, just so she wouldn't get the idea that throwing people is the easy way out.

We will be bringing another stallion to the barn. He's a sabino, rabicano, silver dilute, Khartoon Khlassic son named Khingston. Awesome Awesome horse. I'm very excited about having him added to our barn. We will be taking advantage of the situation by breeding him to all three of my mares. I don't know if I will EVER get this chance again. So breeding to the Ecaho colt, and the other stallion that Raeven has will have to be put off until later. I will have to start writing a list of who I want to breed to who for 2009 for 2010 foals. So much to do.

So Alex and I got married back in January and part of the lovely military is that when you get married, and you live off base, you get this lovely thing called BAH or basic allowance for housing.... But we aren't getting it. And won't be getting it this payday either. Why? BECAUSE THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM SUCKS DONKEY ASS AND WON'T GET UP AND FILE THE DAMN PAPERWORK TO MAKE SURE IT GETS DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh yes. They told Alex we would have a 75% chance of getting it this 15th. Well if you check his online records which tells him what he's going to get paid. It's obvious there's been some change because his normal LES isn't showing up but this half page is... but where is the NOW $3,600 (yes thats thirty six hundred) that we are supposed to be getting both in current month's BAH and back owed BAH? No where! It's not on there! There isn't even $600 which is half a months BAH! This is absolutely rediculous. Gawd I wish I could have a job right now so that I could do something but I can't. Alex is going to go to the finance lady we spoke to last month and see about adding on to the loan we already took out because of the fact we didn't have BAH last month.

So much for the military taking care of it's soldiers and their families.

Okay so today I woke up when Alex woke up. It was quite strange to be  up at 4AM in the morning. I ended up going to bed at like 9PM last night which, as everyone knows, is unusual for me. But for whatever reason, it worked pretty good last night. Then I got to thinking about it. If I went to bed with Alex at 8PM everynight, I could wake up (theoretically) at 4AM every morning and then get all the things done I need to get done in the morning instead of rushing around at night to get it all done. So far, I haven't been able to get anything done but that's because I've been so busy checking up on all my emails and my blogs and stuff. OH you'll never guess who sent me a message on myspace this morning. (Well he sent it in February but I got it this morning.) Matthew...yes... Strange huh? I sent him a message back moe because I was more shocked to hear from him than anything.

The horses are doing good. Star is in his stall by himself because he's still a bad boy. I'm thinking about getting a clip for his stall to make sure he can't break out AGAIN... yes, he broke out. We seperated Polly (the arab pony that belongs to Kriss) but we are going to be moving her back in with the others. I rode Kaydee, uhm, a few days ago. She's alright. A little spooked but she responds ok. She just needs work. Dream isn't popping in her joints as much as she was. Her explosive diarrea has firmed up to soupy poo and she seems to be moving a little faster now that we have her on the joint suppliment. Polly is NOT ridable AT ALL.... Not surprised really. I emailed Mel to see what her thoughts on that were since she was the one to own her before the guy we bought her from. I'm so glad I know her..... Lets see... any other updates. None of the mares are in heat, Kaydee's sheading so bad it looks like a coyote attacked something on the ground oh and Stars been shaved.

We won't be showing him this year. I'm just really lagged this year with the move and organizing everything to make sure this year flows the right way. I think I just want to spend a year getting back on track. Star will be three next year. His muscles will have grown to their stalliony potential from the lovely testosterone which will be flowing these next few months and I will have had a full year to train him for showing. I don't want him to go to the ring and win seconds or thirds his first time out. Plus it gives me a whole year to plan for shows and Blah Blah Blah. Although, we might be purchasing another stallion. He's a straight egyptian stallion. But what I'm interested in is the fact he's a jumper, and he is a sport horse. I can't jump but Kriss used to. I'm about 75% towards his purchase and 25% towards not buying him, just because it's another horse to add to my plate. But Star isn't bringing in any money and I need to bring in some income since we can't build the new facility for a while.... So. I will post some photos and tell me what you think.




And here is his full Arabian Babies. He has two



And this is hir Anglo Arabian Daughter who is showing and doing really well


So yeah. I'm thinking about it. I just don't know what I'm going to do yet.

I don't know what it is but I'm not real motivated to do much of anything right now. Yesterday I did manage to pull Kaydee and ride her for a couple minutes. I may try again later today and also pull out Dancing Flames and see how bad she is. I think it's just I've been under a lot of stress lately and havent really had a chance to enjoy life ya know? We are supposed to be getting a couple packets about barns so that I can look at them and select what I want the barn to look like. It's still going to be a few months before that happens. But hey at least if I plan a head then it will work better ya know.

Going to try to go back to sleep now.