Rick Lamb on Goal Setting

Super Visualization One simple technique experts recommend for improving your performance is visualizing the outcome. People do it all the time. They visualize their goals vividly and begin living into them. Before long the dream becomes reality. Kirsten Farris coaches world class riders on maximizing their performances through a sort of super visualization technique that involves not just seeing, but hearing, smelling, feeling, and tasting success. She explains.

"The more of your senses you can pull into visualization, the more believable it is to your brain. And the interesting thing about our brains is that they don't know the difference between imagined and reality."

Positive affirmations play on the same quirk of the subconscious: The inability to distinguish between images gathered by our senses and those recalled or fabricated in our minds.

Another Week Gone By

Here I am again, reflecting on another week gone by. We were very busy again this past week, every day was a work day for me for Delaine and school for Anna. Anna has begun working at the doctor's office with Delaine. They hired her to come in after school some days to do filing, stuff recall letters and other general office work. This is a great opportunity for her to learn what it's like to work in an office and to interact with people in that environment. She is doing a very good job. Once again there was something to occupy or time every evening this week. There was pep band a couple of evenings, Anna started tutoring a little girl from Winston that is struggling with math. Anna also had and Honor Society meeting and a 4H teen leader meeting this week. We worked around the place all day Saturday while Anna was working at the Boys & Girls club. I spent most of the day working on the Jimmy because the brake lights quit working. I have it narrowed down to a problem with the switch that I'll have to get parts for. Oh yeah Saturday we broke down and replaced the tires on the Ford and on the Jimmy too. Both sets were worn to the cord, in fact the Ford had rubber pealing off the front tires. And to think we were pulling the horse trailer around with those tires! I need to pay closer attention to the wear. It's seen the time goes by so quick that before I know it the tires are worn out. Finally on Sunday evening we got to take the horses out for a workout . . . first time this week. Hopefully we will do better next week.

I sure like the progress Dustie is making. She picks up on things very quickly and is turning out to be an very nice horse to ride. I still love her lope, she's so smooth and has a great head carriage. I'm about ready to go take some riding lessons from a gal that rides and teaches western pleasure. She has won a lot of shows and her life is training horses so she ought to do a good job. I haven't given up on the thought of showing in a western pleasure class this summer. For sure we will do a few parades and the drill as well. Lots of fun . . .

Things a really slowing down at the plant . . . the market is off so much that we are struggling to keep the plant running. We are down this week and no doubt another 8 days in March all related to the slow housing market. We are laying off 4 millwrights and looking at the electricians too. We are taking advantage of the down time to complete some work that is in the backlog. As long as we can keep the folks there we will do what we can to make the place better and more reliable. Our thick billet processing line it complete and setting waiting for commissioning and debugging. It's tough out there . . .

Web Log

Okay, this is for Devin and anyone else on my list of email that are wondering why the heck you are getting this weird email that references Falling Oaks Ranch. I set this blog up so I could share with all of you what is going on in our lives here in Roseburg. I chose the name "Falling Oaks Ranch" because our place has many, many white oak trees that tend to fall down unexpectedly. I think it's because there is so much moisture in the ground most of year that they just rot off. I'm sure one day they will all be gone and we'll have just Laurels left standing. Anyway, just so you'll know it's me, here you go . . .

Love from Dad/Ron Fuentes

Whew!

I'm cooling off after working with Jazzy . . . she got all sweaty and I got all sweaty too. She's figured out that if she backs up I can't control her feet! Smart little horse. I plan to set up the round pen and work with her in the pen so she can't do that. One good thing happened though during our little playtime. She is learning to side pass . . . this is something I've yet to get Dustie to do for me. I got all muddy and she got all muddy too but I believe we made some progress. If we get her out again tomorrow I'll see if we can get some fresh photos of her. She's a pill!

Last night we finally started practicing our drill routine. Dustie did fairly well, Lacey did very well and Brazo did well too. This is the first practice so we will only get better from here until we perform.

Week in Review 2/14/09

We had another busy week . . . Tuesday Delaine and I attended a meeting at the courthouse where County Councilman Joe Laurence had brought together the state water master and the state director of human services from Salem to address the question of whether it is legal for us to use the water from our local water association for domestic purposes. It came into question because one of our neighbors complained that folks on the loop were using the water as drinking water without filtering and treatment. We were afraid the state would come and turn the water off. There are 58 households on the loop and we are one of them, so we figured we better get involved. There were about 15 people from the association at the meeting and we had a very good discussion with a good outcome. The state said they would not turn off the water and the resolution of the issue and to resolve the complaint, the association will assign a person to ensure that all homes connected have the proper filtering/treatment system and their water meets the state health requirements. This individual will keep documentation of inspections and have it available for the state to review if they want to. Everyone in the room on Tuesday has the proper system on their home, and that includes us. We have had our water tested several times and it falls well within the safe drinking water standards. We were happy with the outcome . . .



Later in the day we attended two other meetings at the courthouse, one being our monthly horse neglect meeting and the other being the search and rescue training meeting. At the horse neglect meeting we were assigned to monitor a small herd of cattle in our neighborhood that are looking pretty poor. The lady doesn't feed her cattle adequately and they are going downhill. At some point we may have to round up the cattle and take them someplace where they can get proper feed. We will have to have regular contact with the lady and try to help her figure out a way to feed her animals to keep them healthy. The SAR training was map and compass reading. It was a two-hour class where we learned about the compass and how to use it to orient ourselve out in the woods and then how to apply it with the right map to identify our location and navigate through the woods. Reminds me of boy scouts . . . in couple of weeks we will meet out the forest and practice our skills and take a test to prove we understand it. We will have to take a bearing and arrive at a specified location within 2 degrees to prove we know what we are doing. I'm looking forward to it. While we were at our horse and SAR meetings Anna was at the high school playing in the pep band for the basketball game. We got home late and got to bed around 10pm.



Wednesday and Thursday, believe it or not we had nothing outstanding so we set and watched American Idol. A couple of years ago, I swore you could never get me to watch that program but I've become hooked on it. We record it and watch it every week when we get a chance. If you are watching, what do you think of Norman Gentle?



Friday evening we loaded the horses up and took them out to Dodge Creek Stables to ride. We had a good ride. Delaine road Lacey quite a bit . . . she is getting good at keeping Lacey at the jog and they've been working on side passing with some success. Brazo and Dustie worked up a sweat and both did very well. Dustie just keeps getting better. I'm doing a lot of work on the transitions from walk to trot to lope to trot to walk. I'm also working on her backing under saddle and yielding her hind quarters under saddle. She's doing well backing but has a ways to go on yielding her hind quarters. I'm also working on her haunch turn and she is starting to get the hang of it. Next will be a full side pass.



I didn't take any pictures this week :( I hope to get the camera warmed up this weekend and next week again.



I hope you all had a good week and were warm and comfortable.

I finally got the last piece of documentation for our 2008 taxes and now am able to complete them. We own again this year so I won't file until April 15th. I'm taking a look at my deductions and I'll make sure they hold out enough this year so we won't have to come up with it in 2010. I just read where Obama wants to give us married couples a $1000 tax cut this year that would be tied into the $827 billion stimulus package they are debating.

Last night we hauled the horses out to Dodge Creek Stables to ride on open ride night with the posse. They have a nice arena but there was about 20 people on horse and the dust was so thick in the air it was like a thick fog. We debated on riding for a little while then finally got the horses out. After about and hour most of the folks had left and it was down to just the posse group. We had eight or so people riding. The next couple of hours were pretty comfortable but still we were all covered with brown dust. I'm still getting it out of my eyes this morning. We're hoping they fix that be next Friday so it won't be so dry. We plan to ride out there most Friday evenings. I need to put a lot of miles on Dustie to get her ready for the drill and the summer parades. The girl is doing very well and learning fast. I worked a lot on transitions last night and she is picking right up on it plus it's helping her to slow down at the trot and at the lope. I'm still amazed at how smooth her lope is even as fast as she likes to move. So we got dirty and sweaty but we had a good ride. Soon I'll be taking her out on the trail. Delaine rode Lacey the whole time while we were there too and they are improving with time in the saddle. She spends a lot of time parked at the rail but that's good for Lacey because she is so antsy with the other horses around at times that Delaine isn't comfortable on her. Lacey finally settled down a bit last night and they worked a bit on side passing. Anna and Brazo did good as usual. He tried to crow hop and act up a bit at first then settled right down into his work mode. Afterward we all stopped at Subway in Sutherlin and had a sandwich before going home. We frustrated the poor gal at Subway because all eight of us showed up at the same time and I think she was ready to start cleaning a prepping to close plus we're kind of loud and silly when we in a group together like that. But she fixed our sandwiches anyway and they were good.

This morning I'm off to work for a while. While I'm gone the hoof trimmer will be here and trim the horses hooves, then later this afternoon I'll do some more clean up around the place here. Maybe I'll build a fire . . .