Merry Christmas

Our annual horse torturing picture day happened on Sunday. The horses behaved beautifully and enjoyed the extra attention.

Merry Christmas from the Bionic Cowgirl, Washoe, Alloy, and Reba!

Surprise Horse Cookies

This is GunDiva. The daughter.

Two weekends ago was our annual Baking Weekend at the lodge. It's always a big to-do, and we always crank out a lot of cookies, but we've never made cookies for the horses before. The Friday of Baking Weekend, I had to drop Jay off at the airport on my way up to the lodge, and as I was driving, I drove right past the barn where my friend boards her horse. I looked at the facility and immediately thought, "we should make some horse cookies." Now, why I thought about it when driving by my friend's horse's barn and never while looking out the window at our own horses, I'll never know, but the idea took root.

I was running ahead of schedule, and hungry, so when I stopped to grab a bite to eat, I looked up horse cookie recipes that wouldn't require me to go to the store to buy more ingredients. There were a lot of yummy sounding ones, but the one I landed on was this one:

This seemed easy enough, and we had all of the ingredients, so up to the lodge I went with my additional project in mind.

Luckily, I got up there before everyone else, so Mom and I had undisturbed mother/daughter time to whip out these treats for the horses. They came together very easily and quickly. 

I quickly wrote down the recipe on a white board so we didn't have to keep going back and forth to the video. In the video, she said to bake them at 315*F, which Mom and I decided had to be a mistake, so we baked ours at 350*F. Very quickly, we smelled burning molasses, and turned the oven down. If you chose to make them, follow the video's directions.

We dug through our cookie cutters and found a cowboy boot, cowboy hat, and a horse to use. Not that the horses care about the shapes of their cookies, but they made us smile. We chose to leave them unfrosted, as none of our horses need the extra sugar, and we didn't want to bother with the mess.

I did taste one, just because, and it's not horrible to my human pallet, but not great. The horses, however, greatly disagree and think they're about the best cookies on the planet. Washoe and Alloy got the first taste of the cookies after they loaded into their horse uber, but the rest had to wait until they'd finished with their Christmas pictures yesterday.

This is a simple and easy recipe to make, and the horses give them four hooves up.

Time to Visit the Cousins

This is GunDiva. The daughter.

(500 Allenspark Lodge points if you know where that intro's from. (1000 Once Upon A Miracle points if you know where the points came from.))

For several years now, the "Allenspark Cousins" have been wintering with the "Wild Ones" down at our place. While the Bionic Cowgirl and I both prefer to turn the horses out on winter pasture where they can just be wild, we are no longer are able to send them away for winter camp, so instead they move down to our place until after the last snowstorm in May.

Last weekend was our annual Baking Weekend, which coincided with horse moving day. Jessica, who has trained all of the horses, with the exception of Washoe, came up to move them from the lodge down to my place.

Alloy *hates* Mom's trailer. Hates it. Last year, we spent two days trying to get him to load to go down the hill before calling Jessica to come get him. He loaded like a champ into her trailer, of course. 

Jerk.

Anyway ...

Jessica was kind enough to come up and play horse uber again.

Patiently awaiting their uber

Mom spent some time grooming and loving on them while they waited. The pictures make it look a lot colder out than it actually was. She was all bundled up for the wind, not so much the cold.

Once the uber arrived, she lead them across the street to their ride down.

They really are good horses,
even if they both make me
crazy once in a while.

Big Al had minor opinions about getting on the trailer, but it took only a few times of in and out for him to stay in. Mom and Jessica found out last time she hauled Al, that he prefers to ride backward, so once he got on the trailer and stayed, she backed him the rest of the way in and closed the gate. Easy peasy.

In ...

... in ...

... out ...

Backing into his spot

Success!

Washoe loads on voice command, so getting him into the big, spacious trailer took no more than a "load up" from Mom, then they were on their way.

I headed into the lodge, only to find that my girls had been taking a break to watch the show.

Front row seats

Luckily, there wasn't much of a show this time and we were able to get back to our baking.

The Accident and On-Going Legal Stuff

Hi, GunDiva here. I realized the other day, as I was posting on my own blog, that I'd never posted about Mom and Bill's accident here. That was a conscious decision at the time, since this blog is associated with their business and we were keeping a pretty tight lid on things until they all got sorted out. If you'd like to get caught up on what was posted over on my blog, the posts are here and here. As you'll read in the second post, I had intended to continue posting about the accident, but grief is dumb and I ran out of spoons to keep posting.

The accident was November 21, 2022 and we're just now getting around to seeing some action on the case. It took almost two years of hounding the Utah Highway Patrol and reaching out to the County Attorney to get some traction. Finally, on November 15th, 2024 (I wasn't kidding about it taking almost two years!), the County Attorney notified us that charges were being filed against the driver who hit Mom and Bill.

The initial charges were: automobile homicide, 2nd degree felony for Bill's death, and negligently operating a vehicle resulting in injury, 3rd degree felony for Mom's injuries. At some point, I'm unsure when, the charges were amended to:

• Negligently operating a vehicle resulting in death, 2nd degree felony (Bill)
• Negligently operating a vehicle resulting in serious bodily injury, 3rd degree felony (Mom)
• Driving under the influence - 1st offense in 10 years

The warrant was issued, which was a weight off our shoulders. It had been 725 days since the accident, and I'd basically given up. I figured the other driver got away with killing Bill and almost killing Mom and there was nothing to be done about it. I knew that the accident report was complete, which took until July 2, 2024 to finalize. But, knowing that the accident report was complete, I didn't see any reason why charges hadn't been filed. The evidence is pretty clear, in my eyes, that the other driver is at fault.

Honestly, it was rage at the injustice that forced me to "get mean" when I reached out the the County Attorneys in October, 2024. I wasn't sure which county would be handling the case, so I reached out to two adjoining counties and hounded them until I heard back. My relieve was short-lived at hearing that the other driver had been charged, and a warrant issued, because the other driver lives in Washington State. I knew they weren't going to go extradite him, that we'd have to wait until he was stopped for another traffic infringement. Then, his warrant would show in the system and he'd be arrested and sent back to Utah.

I (we, but I don't want to put words in anyone else's mouth) settled in for another long wait. I really thought it would be a traffic violation that would bring him in. Imagine my surprise when I got an email from the County Attorney on a Sunday night (March 2, 2025) that the other driver was in custody. But not for a traffic violation, because he'd been caught breaking and entering. For some reason, it never crossed my mind that he was a career criminal. It didn't matter how he was brought into custody, just that he was.

Since his first court appearance in March of this year, it has been nothing but hurry up and wait. We've had several virtual court dates. Most have resulted in an extension while he was searching for an attorney to represent him - he makes too much money for a public defender. He finally found an attorney, and we played hurry up and wait again while his attorney got caught up on the case. We were supposed to finally have an arraignment a week or so ago, but he got yet another extension while his attorney gathered the "factual evidence" of the case. I don't know, I think the objective toxicology report, the information pulled from each of the cars computers, and the reconstruction of the accident are pretty factual, but I know it's his attorney's job to question everything.

The one thing the other driver's attorney and I agree on is that this should not have taken over two years to get to this point. This case should be over and done by now.

We had a meeting with the County Attorney, and we were told that while he'll take our feelings into consideration, we really have no say in whether or not he offers a plea deal (drop to 3rd degree felony for Bill's death, 0-5 years prison) or goes to trial. He wants to offer the plea, we want to go to trial (2nd degree felony for Bill's death is 15 years to life).  He agreed to consult with a toxicologist regarding the levels of meth in the other driver's system and how fast it metabolizes, then make the determination if he can prove the other driver was impaired. If he can solidly prove the other driver was impaired, then he's more willing to pursue a trial.

He'll let us know his decision before the next arraignment date in August. I'm not hopeful for a trial, I suspect we're going to have to make peace with a plea. But ... I might be able to swallow the injustice of the plea as long as the other two charges aren't altered.

Logically, I get it. He has a huge case load, and needs to close them. But my sense of right and wrong is outraged.

A friend of mine is fond of saying, "We don't have a justice system, we have a legal system." He's absolutely correct. There will be no justice, no matter how this turns out. So, we'll play within the legal system and pray that he faces some consequences.