Another Appointment With the Best Farrier in the World

I got up at the crack of dawn to get ready for the horses' farrier appointment.  It had been 8 weeks since their last barefoot trim.  Lostine had been limping around for a few weeks, and Bombay started limping the day before.  I'd seen all the horses stubbing their toes, stumbling and limping.  I told him we either have to cut the toes shorter so they can roll over them better or trim more

Activity at Dusk

Things get busy around our place at dusk...




The bunnies come out and begin their shenanigans.  This one is running under my horse trailer.



This one was hopping between Lostine's legs.



The birds are molting or fighting or something, because their backs are all bloody, missing feathers, and really gross.



This is Mrs. Lizard who lives under my haystack.  I used to call her Mr. Lizard

A Stolen Life

Though the book has been out for over a year, I finally read Jaycee Dugard's memoir titled A Stolen Life.  You may recall that she was kidnapped at the age of 11 from a neighborhood close to the area where I lived at the time.  While her resurfacing at the age of 29 made international news, her story gained plenty of air time with the local news throughout the 18 years that she was missing. 

Out and About

I have a number of lizard buddies around my place.  This guy likes to scale walls to eat crickets.  There's a smaller lizard that runs beside me each time I walk up and down the porch stairs, and a bigger lizard living under the haystack that I call "the dinosaur lizard" because he reminds me of a Stegosaurus.   He's a funny guy because he likes to hang with the bunnies.  We saw a huge lizard

Book Review: Twisted Tree by Kent Meyers

I stumbled upon Twisted Tree by Kent Meyers while shopping at a Borders bookstore that was going out of business.  The horse and prairie on the cover caught my eye and I loved the title, understanding that it probably was not just a reference to a place or thing, but symbolism for the plot.  Us creative writing nerds get excited over subtleties.

However, once I read that it's yet another book

Transitions

Despite all the frustrations and
headaches that Santa caused me, I at least wanted him to receive some
credit for referring me to a property manager, so I let him do that
much. The property manager and I had a phone conference in which she
explained to me what putting a house up for rent entails. I asked
her to outline my expenses and she said repeatedly that they don't
collect any money until

A Long Silence

After hiring Santa Claus to sell my
house, I expected to get occasional calls or emails with updates on
how things were coming along. When I sold my mother's house after
she passed, I had a real estate agent who contacted me at least once
a week, more often every other day, whether he had news or not. He'd
call just to tell me that no one looked at the house that week.



When the house hadn't

The Hay Handler

You may recall me writing about the differences between Northern Nevada horse hay and Central Arizona horse hay.  In Nevada I could get a flake of alfalfa, grass or mix that was packed so tight that I could just pick up a slice, carry it to the horse paddock, and throw it over the fence in one piece.  However, the hay in Arizona is much drier and looser.  If you try to pull a slice off a bale, it

What Level of Education Does Your Agent Have?

Real estate agents need to be licensed,
but for all we know, some of them may not have made it past a sixth
grade education. It was starting to look that way with Santa Claus.
When I realized how badly my agent and the buyer's agent botched
communications regarding my house, I decided to search for it on the
Internet to see how and where it was being advertised. I had seen it
on my real

An Offering

Our house wasn't even on the market one
week and we received a full price offer. My real estate agent told
me that this couple loved the house and they really wanted it. I was
skeptical. I had no reason to be skeptical beyond the fact that the
offer came suspiciously fast and without any bartering. Nothing is
ever that easy, especially when it comes to real estate.



The wife seemed to be

On The Market

When making the choice to move, it was
more important to us that we find the right property first, and sell
our old property later. Moving is expensive and difficult, so you
don't want to be forced into whatever you can find that's available within 30 days
while your current house is in escrow. Plus, if you are buying and selling, you somehow have to get escrow for the house you buy to wrap up

In the Interim

Thank you for the supportive comments
left in my last post. Here's what's been happening over my short break
from blogging:




Lostine went lame, and so did I.
I jumped off the haystack, rolled my ankle, did a couple of
somersaults and limped around for a few days. Just when the ankle
started healing, I was walking around on pallets getting hay when
the water began overflowing in a water