Horse Walks

I've been taking the horses for walks when the temperatures are bearable, leading them a little further out of their comfort zone each time.  They have very clear lines on where their comfort zones begin and end.  Once outside the zone, the head goes up, the tail arches, the breathing and heartbeat speed up, the legs become lead-filled, and the snorts begin.  The worst part is that they stop

Harvest Moon Rising Tonight

Now you can see what visits your home at night... 




Either that or go out and cut some more hay for hungry horses.

Waiting on Fall

I was hoping that once fall arrived we would turn an obvious corner here in the desert, but so far it has just been a subtle slope.  We've been bouncing back and forth between day time temperatures in the high 90's and the 100's.  The only noticeable difference is at night because the night time temperatures are now dropping below 80 degrees and our air conditioner is running less often.  Some

The Long Ride by Lucian Spataro Jr., Ph.D.

Many of the books I have reviewed on this blog are books I picked out to read and felt were good enough to spread the word.  Occasionally, I receive requests from others to review books.  Somewhere along the line I got on a list to review romance novels and had to correct that in a hurry since romance is as far from what I want to read as you can imagine.  The last book I was sent by a

Hay There!

The horses got their hay delivery today.  It's a good thing because they were getting worried.  We were down to two bales of alfalfa and three bales of grass.  These guys were so great.  They unloaded and stacked everything while I cleaned up manure.  If it were me, I would have popped a hernia after lifting the fifth bale.

Poetry by Maxine Kumin

I've been reading WHERE I LIVE, New & Selected Poems 1990-2010, by Maxine Kumin, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1973.  I met her many years ago when she visited my alma mater for Writer's Week and wrote letters to her a couple of times, and she very generously wrote back.  I have always enjoyed her poetry, not just because of Kumin's superior skill with words, but because her poems

Can You Identify These Weeds?

Weed #1:  These yellow flowers have taken over our property in central Arizona this past month.  The horses were grabbing them up by the mouthful as I walked them past, so I'd like to know what they are called and whether they are poisonous to horses.



Here's a bundle next to one of the tires that the previous homeowners left on the property for us to dispose of, and then next picture is a

New Hazards

Now that I'm taking the horses out for walks to introduce them to their new surroundings outside of the barn,  I'm running into a new problem:  Poisonous plants.  The contractor who built my barn warned me that pretty much everything that grows in Arizona is poisonous to horses.  With the generous amount of rain we've had this summer, all kinds of weeds, flowers and shrubs have sprung up.  One of

A Weekend with Family

I had a nice weekend with family.  On Saturday my husband took me out to breakfast for my birthday, and the kids came home from college on Sunday.  My daughter baked me a cake and the kids each brought presents.  My son gave me a Stephen King book I saw him reading, and I said I wanted to read it when he was done.  My daughter gave me a couple of CDs by While We're Up, the band her talented

Test Run on the Trails

It was a gorgeous day.  My husband and I took Lostine for a test run or test walk off the property onto the trails.  I picked Lostine because she's the oldest, easiest to handle and most experienced.  It's been nearly two years since I've worked with horses on a regular basis, so I didn't need a big challenge.  I'm in really poor physical shape having been cooped up in the air conditioning all

WTH? 2

I totally forgot to mention in the previous WTH post the huge black tarantula-like creature I found on the floor when picking up my backpack to vacuum underneath it.  It's not a tarantula, because it is hairless, but it's the same size and has these crab-like legs that are longer on the sides than toward the front.  I researched it and I think it was a Tailless Whipscorpion.  It scared the heck

WTH?

Tonight my husband called me out to the garage. He had been hearing noises and thought a storm was moving in, but it turned out that he just forgot to close the garage bay door. When he walked into the garage and turned on the light, this is what he found:






There is no way that toad under my car took that dump and left behind that huge puddle of piss. So, apparently, a coyote got in and

Scrappy Follows His Nose

Being a very old and fat dog resembling a sausage with a head, four legs and a tail, Scrappy didn't handle the heat from this summer very well.  When I took him outside to do his business, he'd only walk out a few feet, find his spot, then turn around and go back inside panting heavily.  One day I tried to walk him to the mailbox at the end of the driveway and the old man couldn't make it, so I

Gray Hairs Gone

I made it to my three-hour hair appointment despite the pouring rain and flooded roadways.  The experience of having a new hair stylist got me thinking about how hard it is to have to change everything when you move out of state.  I had the same hair stylist for 15 years in Nevada.  She never raised her prices on me during all that time.  I looked forward to my appointments with her because she

On a Cooler Evening

Happily, Gabbrielle is moving fine now.  She probably just bruised her legs while trying to get away from the dump truck.  Once a wind picked up and the sun set, the horses had a rumpus party on the pile o' gold gunk.  They were digging at the sides of the sand pile, so I climbed to the top of it and stood up.  Bombay's head was lower than my feet.  I kept urging him to climb up there with me but

Gabbrielle Needs a Change of Shorts

Yes, that's "a change of shorts", not "a change of sorts".  You know me.  I have to tell the whole story.  It all started when Lostine began limping regularly.  The farrier assured me that she didn't have an abscess, but considering all the cracking and creaking in her knees and hocks, she probably has arthritis.  I ordered some MSM with glucosamine chondrontin and have been waiting for the

The Done Signal

When I was a child, my mother used to get annoyed with my father for signaling that he was done eating his meal by shoving his plate aside.  Usually, the rest of us were still eating, and my mother felt pressured to interrupt her own meal to get up, remove his plate, rinse it in the sink and put it in the dishwasher.

That behavior never really bothered me, probably because I was a kid and