horses – Page 24 – The Hermits' Rest

So Much to Be Happy About

It really was a great day today. I don’t think the weather could have been better, all the animals were happy, and people were nice, too. This was the kind of day I’d hoped to have when I was a kid thinking about when I grew up.

Plus I saw this Queen butterfly on a vitex bush at the local coffee shop.

All my meetings were pleasant today, with good conversation and productivity. I finished a tedious task so now I can look forward to more fun work next week. I even sort of enjoyed a lot of tedious copying and pasting to make a list of every tag ever used in my Master Naturalist blog. Dang.

Lunch break was at the coffee shop with Anita, where I had a great coffee and huge salad. We listened to Chris the owner’s spouse talk about music and our mutual love of Ruidoso, New Mexico. Then we got all our talking in. We get to hang out again tomorrow, because I’m going Thanksgiving shopping with her tomorrow (Lee won’t grocery shop on weekends). What a nice break!

Birds flying to their roost at sunset. Cries I think. Or vultures.

After finishing work I enjoyed working with the horses. Drew even let me get some burs off the front of his head! the key was doing it while he ate. Tomorrow I’ll work on it more. But being out with them in the perfect weather was just ideal.

All this, and there were still more burs on him.

Finally, I went to a “hat bar” thing that my friend Courtney held at her store. I enjoyed watching the young woman who decorated the hats and had fun designing one for myself. She put a pansy on it for me.

The snacks were unique. They featured a huge armadillo sculpted out of cream cheese and filled with ham dip. It was ultra realistic and took folks a while to get up the courage to break into it. Whoever made it is talented!

Most interesting dip sculpture I ever saw

Anyhow, the hat thing was fun, though I felt sort of old and in the wrong social group (it was mostly the fashionable young women of town). But there were a couple women over 50, plus two people I knew.

Courtney did some hat burning, too, and was really proud of her leopard spots. She has to be good at it, since half the items in the store are leopard print (note shoes on customer in photo).

I had lots of fun with my friend Jenecia, who was in my Master Naturalist class with me. I hardly ever see her when she isn’t working one of her many entrepreneurial ventures, so getting to just laugh and catch up was nice.

I had more fun helping her find materials for her hat than mine, and it came out so cute!

My hat had a theme of matching Drew’s tack, as if I’ll wear a hat when working with him. But it’s going to go with lots of my clothing.

And as if the day couldn’t end any better, I walked outside to see all the pretty lights in the town square. Every day Cameron gets a little better.

There. Just wanted to share a good, full day of friends and fun.

Daily Bird

Today’s bird is the belted kingfisher, because I got to enjoy our winter resident as it flew around the front pond today. It seems to make the rounds of the three tanks/ponds near our house, judging from when I hear it. I see it often, too. Kingfishers have such a distinctive shape that they’re easy to spot.

The only other kingfisher I’ve seen is the ringed kingfisher I saw at the National Butterfly Center, which is in the northernmost part of its range.

I like to watch these birds. I can remember the first time I saw one, which was on some river. It must have been in Illinois at the little park by a large creek. I saw it catch a fish! I’ve seen that a few times.

We’re lucky to have one here at the Hermits’ Rest. I think I annoy it by trying to take a photo of it, but it’s because I love it!

A Guest Blogger!

Neigh! It’s me, Apache Smoke Signal, Suna’s horse buddy, also known as Patchy. I’m taking a break from constant eating, my favorite hobby, to be your guest blogger. Suna is too tired to type.

I had to dictate this, because I can’t use a keyboard.

I want you all to know I’ve been eating my special treats with the nasty pink centers every day, and I think I feel a lot better. I jumped two jumps in a row today, to my surprise. I surprise easily.

I’ve been extra well behaved, too, not like that young punk Droodles who keeps pestering my little friend Fifi. Today he decided to gallop full speed into the pens, pester Fiona, then gallop back to our manna from Heaven that Suna calls a round hay bale, three times. I don’t know what gets into that boy.

He won’t even lower his head like a gentleman to get those pain balls Suna calls burs off his head. That’s probably what’s making him all goofy.

Suna says maybe next year my coat won’t be so thick in winter. I’ve been so sweaty.

I had fun this evening when I had my first night visit with the human who tells me what to do and gets all bossy when I get nerved out. She always makes me go fast and tells me I started on the wrong hoof. How do I know?

I tried to enjoy eating my delicious bag of hay while my pal Aragorn was running around with my previous rider friend Sara, but there is a horse baby who won’t shut up there now. He kept yelling that he wanted his mommy. She was just over by the handsome man horse, so I can’t figure out why this baby was so loud. It ruined my moment of peaceful eating with no other horses daring to try to share.

What Suna wanted me to tell you is that even after enduring her washing my mane (I was enjoying that dirt) I did things I didn’t know I could do! Even though it was dark with bright lights in my delicate eyes, I trotted less awkwardly than I used to at many speeds and could understand what Suna was asking! And I went around the barrels well enough to please the bossy human. I admit I don’t like that weird fast walk they keep making me do, but it’s getting easier.

I need to get back to chewing and dominating the other horses now. Suna will be back to talk about birds and plants tomorrow. How boring. Grass is the only interesting plant! And maybe alfalfa.

Battle of the Burs, part 2

Yeah, I’m still on the topic of bur removal. Now that I have my weapons (really cool flexible gloves and sunflower oil) I’m armed for a fight, or what passes for a fight if one is actually a pacifist.

The spoils of war: half a bucket o’ cockleburs.

Late this afternoon, neighbor Sara came over for her monthly hoof trimming of Apache and Drew. Since Apache was going first, I figured I could de-bur him at the same time. We were very lucky that he seems to be feeling better, and he happily let us both work on him at the same time.

I first got at least some of the dirt and clumped mud off him. He’s fond of rolling to get rid of flies. Then I worked on the tail. Wow. About 40 burs came off with no irritation on either his or my part. Sara suggested I braid it, so I tried. If this doesn’t work I’ll wrap it in horse bandage stuff. I have tons from Nancy, the lady we got the horse trailer from.

Next came the once-white mane. It wasn’t as bad as Drew’s, but there was a huge wad between his ears. I got one big bur stab on my index fingertip (the one I use to knit and type on the phone, of course). I understand that the burs must fight back a little. Apache got a lot of oil on his coat, but he enjoyed having it rubbed in.

I had just enough time to braid his mane before Sara was finished putting thrush medicine on. I didn’t try anything fancy on the oily and dirt-encrusted mess. I did put matching rubber bands in.

Let’s see what the burs can do with THIS!

The braids do emphasize his lack of proper muscles. But now that it’s dried out a little we can do more than plod. He was so patient. I love how he lowers his head for me to remove his forehead burs. They must bother him, too.

Meanwhile, Drew was over in the other pen bothering Fiona and getting kicked. I’m sure she was glad when I came and got him. He was more interested in the prospect of his dinner than any hoof trimming or bur removal.

Drew proceeded to kick over my box of rubber bands, poop on Sara, not let me touch his mane burs, and generally act moody. His feet looked okay anyway, so he just got thrush stuff and frog trimming (that’s part of a hoof). So that bur skirmish didn’t go as well.

It IS a lovely battleground. (looking toward the Hermits’ Rest from the cabin)

But I will fight again tomorrow! Phase three will be Death to Cocklebur plants. Yes, I know they are dying anyway, because they’re annuals (huge annuals) but they are going in the burn pile! A warrior’s funeral pyre will ensue, eventually.

No doubt the crows will caw and coyotes howl.

Take That, Burs!

What is good about having a pet?

I can answer the prompt and share today’s triumph at the same time. How efficient.

I slept last night and that seems to have helped settle my nerves. I think the kitty therapy I’ve gotten the last couple of days may have helped, too. Spending time with Potato, my son’s purry and substantial cat has been quite calming.

What a nice kitty. I’ll be sorry when my pet sitting duties are over, but I still have plenty of animals to exude good vibes and positivity. Yeah, that’s a good thing about pets. They provide companionship with no strings attached. They help you heal.

And thanks to pets, I see lots of sunsets.

You may be aware that I consider cockleburs to be a bad thing about having pets. Now that Alfred stays mostly in our fenced-in area, burs are a horse problem. Mine remain covered. I have a plan to eliminate them once it dries up a little. All manual labor, but they’ll join the bur-n pile. Ha ha.

Today I worked and worked, but made it to the horses before it was too dark. I arrived armed with a bottle of inexpensive sunflower oil. In the tack room I found some great gloves I’d bought with plastic on the palms and fingers. But proof? I was ready to find out.

I resolved to de-bur whichever horse I could grab first. Apache had been all friendly all day long (now that he loves his pill treats), but when he saw the bridle, he stood in mud and sort of dared me to come get him. Rather than slide all over and risk twisting my knee again (I did so yesterday and it still hurts), I turned around and put the bridle on Drew, who was politely standing beside me, encrusted in mud and burs.

Drew is still leery of having his head touched, so he looked awful. It was embarrassing, so I didn’t take a picture. Instead, I got out the tools and removed at least one layer of mud from him. Then I donned the gloves and poured oil on his tail and worked it all around the burs that had it looking like a dog tail.

Sure enough, the burs slipped off nicely and my hands stayed much happier thanks to the gloves. I think I even had fun, a little. In the end, he’s had a conditioning treatment and is all smooth back there. I hope I didn’t do some bad horse management, because I didn’t ask anyone before I rashly did it.

There were a lot of burs in that tail!

Then came the hard part, the mane. He wasn’t thrilled about that but was pretty patient. I started from the back and moved forward. Parts of his mane were fine, but some looked impossibly matted. I worried I might have to do some trimming. I was impressed that he let me get all the way up to his ears.

His head owie looks ok but he’s not interested in me doing much more than taking off surface burs. By that time it was getting dark, anyway. I’ll just let the oil soften his front burs.

His halter is loose because I’d put it on over a mass of burs.

Tomorrow I hope to work on the spotted mud ball known as Apache since Sara is coming to trim my guys.

PS: anyone who thought Drew couldn’t have been kicked in the head by our mini-donkey Fiona will be interested to know that I witnessed him chasing her with his head lowered, like dogs playing. She did, indeed land some solid blows on him. It’s a wonder he has any brains left. And horse brains are little.

Saddles Are Expensive

Name the most expensive personal item you’ve ever purchased (not your home or car).

Since I have had a poor mental health day, I’ll just answer by telling you that horses are expensive to maintain. I’d say the three most expensive things I’ve ever bought that weren’t buildings or vehicles have been the three horse saddles I’ve bought.

That’s the most costly one. Cost 5X as much as the horse (before expensive training).

However, they are comfortable for the horses and beautiful, too. A lot of saving was involved for each. I can also lift them. That’s important for older riders.

The second costliest. This horse was “free.” Now his meds cost more than mine.

No riding today. It’s too muddy. So I walked the horses and pondered a bur removal campaign. At least Apache likes his medicine and asks for me to take burs out (sticks his head in the right position).

This splotchy cow resembles Apache with no burs.

Otherwise, today I heard seven kinds of sparrows and even photographed one, along with turkey vultures and great egrets.

The birds seem to like the damp, cool weather judging by how many were out this morning.

I’m just feeling really weird. Is it anxiety? Too much salty food? Dehydration? Medication side effect? Being an empath? I may get checked tomorrow in case it’s blood pressure or something. I’m not having an emergency, just feeling unbalanced.

Better Days Do Come

Sometimes when you have a long string of anxious and worried days, it’s nice to have one that builds you up. I hate it when I’m dealing with annoying physical symptoms and I’ve done all I can to get my equilibrium back, but the truth is sometimes I just have to wait it out. Today helped!

I got to enjoy what passes for fall color in College Station Today.

Penney woke me up by wigging and licking like crazy for about an hour, so I got up, looked at the damp day, and did my nails with a set I’d looked forward to using, which looked like a brocade cloth with big flowers on it. It didn’t go on really great, but it perked right up when I added some gaudy jewels I had hanging around. Now the whole thing looks over the top, but it cheers me up.

After talking to the chickens, I headed over to the place I got them, Bird and Bee Farm, where our Master Naturalist wildscape project is located. I rarely have time on their special days to get out there, so I was glad I had a while to drop by.

I’d intended to take photos of all the butterflies, but it was still too damp in late morning for them to be out. Even the bees were still napping.

My friend Debi and I looked at all the flowers and found lots of caterpillars and a cat.

All these black ones came up as salt marsh moths

It was so pleasant just wandering around and seeing what is still hanging around this time of year. The dew was so heavy that it made for fine photo ops. It’s nice to photograph non-wildflowers like roses and zinnias occasionally

I hung out with birds a bit, and heard a new wren on Merlin, a sedge wren. I wish I’d seen it because it sure looks cute in its photo online. Instead, here are turkeys.

After talking a while with other Master Naturalists, I had to leave. I hope Patsy notices I put my nails in the blog for her.

The reason I had to leave was that I had my second watercolor class at Brazos Watercolor Retreats in College Station. We learned to paint trees with sunlight pouring through them. There were lots of new techniques to learn, like making white space by putting some rubbery stuff on the paper before painting. I also learned to make the sun rays.

I didn’t do a great job on the tree part, but I know what I’d do differently if I tried again. For a first try, I’m fine with my finished product. Maybe I should get some paints, brushes, and paper. It’s fun to see how the colors come out.

I even made it home in time to feed the horses before it was too dark, which makes it a lot easier to give Apache his medicine. They have a new bale of hay, and judging from the holes in the wet ground, they had a good time running around after they escaped while the tractor was going in. Those little dickenses.

So, yay, today has been fine enough that I’m handling learning about a few deaths in my circle pretty well. I have plenty of energy to send out love to all the families and friends, which feels really good.

Hug a loved one.

In Three Years?

What will your life be like in three years?

I’m pessimistic about life in three years, and it creeps into my nightmares.

I will probably stop working in Corporate America by then. I hope there’s still Social Security.

I’m three years I’ll still find tiny baby insects cute.

We may have to go somewhere we feel safer. Texas elected officials make policies that worry me, as someone who’s not an evangelical Christian white guy.

I’m not sure there will be places not run by extremist dictators in three years to go to.

And it will be hot and dry.

Hope I can still have horses. Though at the moment mine are getting on my last nerve. I’m addition to each being covered by burs, there’s this.

Drew broke the water line to the trough. It flew 20 feet. Drew then thought it was a snake and huffed at it.

All the people turning on each other with intolerance and cruelty messes with my mind. I think that’s actually a reasonable response.

Oh, I’ll probably just keep trying to be kind and work for peace in my own way. Mother Nature will still be here. Love will be here. They both may just be harder to find.

When Your Furry Family Member Gets You Angsty

Describe a family member.

I didn’t realize the prompt today would fit with what I wanted to write about today. But it does. I’ve had some of the worst anxiety symptoms and bad dreams I’ve had in years since Friday. Ugh. I get strong chest pains, tightness in my head with ringing sounds, and weakness in my legs. None of this is pleasant. At least my anti-anxiety meds work most of the time!

But, it turns out that, while I only get moderately stressed out about the numerous health issues in my immediate family, a sick horse throws me for a loop. And by the way, he’s no sicker now than he was last week, but knowing something was wrong got me full time of worry, angst, anxiety…and guilt.

I guess I’m unhappy to find out that Apache’s blood test results were extra bad (like 400 where high normal is 40) for ACTH. This means that, as we’ve always suspected, he has PPID or Cushing’s desease. The link tells you what the tests he took were, and we’re from the place doing the testing. His insulin wasn’t bad, which is good news.

Don’t panic. Medicine is on order that will reduce his symptoms and make him feel much better, though it won’t fix his endocrine system, which has probably been bad his whole life. We’ve just been managing the heck out of his symptoms.

Why have I been so upset? It’s because this furry family member has meant so much to me. He’s the first horse I learned to take care of and to ride, so he’s dealt with all my learning experiences and mistakes. Conversely, I’ve dealt with all his issues and idiosyncrasies, along with his curiosity, eagerness to learn, humor, and patience.

Don’t forget my beauty, other than the furry coat and sweating.

He and I each have our challenges, but we’ve stuck together through bad feet, poor horsemanship, anxiety (both of us), and changes. And in the past year or so, we’ve finally become a real team and started having fun. There’s been a lot of growth going on for both of us.

So Friday, when I found out the vet was supposed to have sent me those test results but I didn’t have them, and I got the impression they were bad, no amount of me telling myself that getting upset wouldn’t change things worked. I just fell apart and got mentally dysfunctional. I mean, internally. I did all my stuff and acted fine. I just hurt inside. I care so much about my animals.

I was mainly feeling bad that I didn’t get the testing done earlier, like I’ve let him suffer needlessly. I was concentrating so hard on his feet, muscles, and diet that I missed this. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t want to get haltered some days, or why he gets squirrelly on rides…blah blah blah. I’m just making stuff up at this point, but I guess that’s what you do when you think you could have helped but didn’t.

My hope it’s that by talking about my relationship with my Paint/Arab companion of lo these many years I’ll help myself feel better. He will be on his way to feeling better as soon as those meds arrive, and we’ll take it from there.

I’ll remember good stuff like hearing the sandhill cranes migrating overhead.

We will both be fine, especially if folks treat us kindly and gently. I don’t need to be made to feel worse with a bunch of, “Why didn’t you…?” And “You should have…” stuff. I just need ways to move forward and live the rest of our time together positively and happily. The horses and my inner circle are what keep me going!

Resources

Equine Cushing’s and Testing

Equine Endocrinology

It’s the Most Water-full Time of the Year

Yessir. These days we tend to have a few months of drought, a couple of dribbles, then WHOOSH! A big ole flood comes along. Today was Flood Day. We got four inches or more, three of them very fast.

Even the backup culvert was called into use.

It was about time that our poor ponds (tanks in Texan) got refilled, because the drizzles we’ve had earlier in the month didn’t stop them from continuing to dry up.

Still, it is probably too much to ask of Mother Nature, but a few days of an inch or two a day would be a lot better for our plants and trees, because this much water just runs off into the creek, into the Little Elm, then into the Little River, then into the Brazos, and on to the sea. Or something like that.

For a while there around noon today it looked like we were in a lake, because it was raining so hard nothing could absorb. It was fun to watch, as it was fun to see the creek slowly fill up as more rain went into Walker’s Creek up north from here.

You normally can’t see water from our back yard.

After the rain, I had a lot of fun in my rubber boots looking at the aftermath. Drew was enjoying the water running in from the arroyo and across the road. I hope there wasn’t too much fertilizer runoff, because now it’s all in our front pond.

Mabel, on the other hand, changed colors from rolling in the mud. That gal likes her dirt.

The minute the sun came out, out came all the birds, butterflies, and bugs. The birds had a feast, I’m sure. And I finally got a picture of one of the beautiful blue butterflies with its wings open! That was a personal goal.

You can see how high the water got during the hard rain

I also made all my work goals, even publishing my training video successfully after it breaking repeatedly. For the first time ever, I found the answer in one of those ancient user forums on the software’s site. Turns out you can’t have any of that fancy chart stuff from PowerPoint in your presentation for it to work with my add-on software. I converted the charts to images and everything was fine. I tell you what, it makes me feel smart.

More rain is in store for a few days. There goes my plan to ride my horses every single day. Ya can’t have everything.

Who Says Neigh and Deserves Some Hay?

I know, I know! My horses! And after a lot of effort on many people’s part, they have some round bales to enjoy when the cold weather comes.

The horses seem pleased. They should be.

I had just washed my hair when I went out to figure out where to put the hay. I now wish I had a wind like today’s to style my hair with every wash! It made my hair look great!

By the way, I may deserve a treat or pampering like the horses get, too. It’s the dreaded cocklebur season. I’ve probably mentioned this multiple times already this autumn. The horses seem to think the grass under the bur plants is the BEST, because each of them has a fine collection of burs in their manes, with bonus tail burs…or had.

I took an extra half hour getting Drew and Apache ready for their lessons today. Some of it involved getting mud out of their hooves, but most of it was bur removal. Drew, whose new hairstyle is shown above, had about 15 burs in his made and a bunch in his tail. His hair is smooth, which makes it easy to get burs out. When I was done, I did the braiding you see. I hope it makes for fewer burs and easier removal. Plus, it’s cute.

Yes, eventually Apache got braided, too. First at least 38 burs had to be removed. He has fine, frizzy hair in his mane, so the burs stick way more and are much harder to remove. My poor hands! (I’m careful not to use my nails.) I ended up making his forelock into some kind of horse-man bun. That should help. The rest of his braid is longer than Drew’s, but at least it won’t fall forward and may get fewer burs. We will see. Too bad I never was a girly-girl or had a pony and learned to do fancy braids. But Tarrin said the style I did might work.

He also has lots of wisps and at one point his braid flew up like a kite.

But I can’t be annoyed at the guys. I’m still kind of shocked at how well Apache’s been doing in lessons. It’s so very fun to get more skilled at riding as he gets better at his form. We did slaloms today and ran out of things to criticize. And we did three barrels correctly, at a trot.

These are things I never expected. Heck, even his side passing is borderline okay! Quite an improvement! Obviously he isn’t built to be a high-level dressage horse and he started out way late, but as long as he’s healthy and interested, we’ll keep working on things.

Drew and I are both improving, too. Bridling is coming along, and I’m getting the hang of helping him get straighter on slaloms and barrels. He’s where Apache was last year. But I think he can do great things if we keep working away. He deserves hay, too.

And I deserve hay. Duh. Even though I bray rather than saying neigh.

Lots of us deserve a reward right now. I’ve solved some problems and helped people at work, for which I’m proud. Lee’s buying us a house to renovate! Go him! And others in my circle are being amazing caregivers. Teamwork!