After the Storm

We finally got a torrential downpour, about 1.7 inches of rain in just a few hours last night, and after any good storm, the creatures come out.  I was attacked by a Palo Verde Beetle when feeding the horses this morning.  It was trying to burrow into the flake of hay that I was scooping up into my arms to deliver to the horses, and it didn't like me disturbing its nest.  I'm sure my neighbors

Critters and Clouds

I managed to get pictures of a couple of different types of butterflies from my last shoot. This one's wings are pretty beat up, but its face is so expressive. I'd swear it is posing for the camera...





This one has fake eyes on its wings...



We've been getting lots of clouds, lightning and thunder, but not much rain...



While driving home at night, my husband pointed out a bunch of

The Butterflies are Here

When I walked outside there were at least a dozen different types and colors of butterflies feasting on my Lantana.  These two were the only ones to stick around for the photoshoot.  Hopefully, the others will get used to my presence and not be so camera shy next time.

Yesterday I was doing a photoshoot of both the horses and the stormy sky when I became aware of the annoying sound of a car

Sweaty Cabin Fever

Who can resist such a face?

It is believed that a lack of light causes depression, but I can tell you that we've got plenty of sunlight in Arizona, and what causes depression is simply not being able to go outdoors due to extreme temperatures.  I used to associate cabin fever with being snowed in for long periods of time, but now I've got cabin fever from being boiled in for long periods of

Good Citizen Training

Do you try to train your horses to be good citizens?  It's been a slow weekend, so I've had some time to really observe my horses and I was shocked to see how rude they are to each other.  Some might say that I am projecting human behaviors onto horses, but that's all I know.  I've still got a lot to learn as far as herd mechanics or the sociology of horses goes, but there are some behaviors I

Sensitivity

Sensitivity #1:  Pain

Despite obtaining my arm injury on Sunday, the pain has been getting worse, rather than better.  Yesterday I developed a large enough knot on the outside of my forearm that it was visible.  Touching the knot resulted in more pain, and it was a hard mass of tissue about the size of a golf ball.  This perplexed me, because my forearm never took a blow.  I just simply pulled

Shoveling with One Arm

The heat is unpleasant, but the wind seems to be my biggest foe.  It seems every time I get hurt, it's because of the wind.  You may recall that there was a bit of a debate over the design of our hay barn.  I was being pulled in so many different directions on that topic, but I was already over budget and had run out of money by the time I realized that the design did not fit my needs.  I was

A Little Excitement

I took the dogs outside and noticed Bombay and Gabbrielle had their necks stretched over the fence and were looking into the arroyo.  I figured they were watching a coyote, so I didn't bother to investigate.


About an hour later my husband was worried about me shoveling manure in the extreme heat.  The house was quiet and it was about that time of the afternoon when I go outside to clean the

A Puzzle

My experience with the horses this week has mainly consisted of trying to figure out what was wrong with Gabbrielle.  On Tuesday, P.S. called me out to the horse trailer because Gabbrielle was showing extreme signs of sensitivity under her jaw.  P.S. just lightly brushed her face, and Gabbrielle threw her head up and ran backwards hitting the end of the rope.  She did it again when I reached up

Something Different

My daughter planned a vacation for herself to the Grand Canyon, and I shamelessly invited myself along.

Since this was my daughter's vacation from years of hard work at multiple jobs while taking a full-time course load in college, I let her plan everything and I just went along for the ride.  First on her itinerary was participating in an adventure course just south of Flagstaff.  I opted out

Haystack Adventures

I needed a change in my hay barn management routine after several monsoons flooded and saturated some hay bales we had knocked to the ground, and they molded in just a few short days.  Normally, my husband, who isn't afraid of heights, climbs a ladder and knocks down a couple of week's worth of hay to the ground where I cut the bales open as I need them.  We can't get away with that in the summer

One Down, One to Go

You may remember that I made two major goals for myself this year:  One was to finish a king-sized bed quilt I've been constructing since 2008, and the other was to finish and publish my second novel.  Well, today I finally finished that quilt!  You can view pictures of it at my Frazzle Frenzy blog.

Of course, I find it rather silly that I completed the quilt in the middle of summer while living

Just Point and Praise

I didn't want to jinx myself, so I haven't said anything up until now, but the horses seem to have finally worked out their differences and figured out how to play without hurting themselves or each other.  I originally guessed it would take about two weeks to integrate a new horse into the herd, but the personalities were so different, and there was the added complexity of my alpha mare stepping

August Trail Ride

I'm used to August being the hottest month of the year, but we've actually been cooling down here in Arizona.  We've had a lot of cloudy days without rain or with only a minimal amount of rain.  My energy level depends a lot upon the humidity as well as the heat and whether or not there is a cool breeze to go along with all of it.

P.S. was riding Gabbrielle in the arena and I realized that the

Tale of the Woman-Eating Tree

I've been trying to figure out what to write about because I hate to be repetitive, but the same old things have been going on.  I see coyotes trotting around my property.  I've got a couple of rather large alligator lizard buddies who hang out with me down at the hay barn.  I've been bathing the horses since we had a break in the storms, but I ran out of shampoo before I could wash Rock.  Yet