I can't believe how cheap they were giving away horses at the adoption today. This is John's bid sheet. (Doesn't he have pretty handwriting?)

"A new life ahead"

A tense moment

Her first halter (which she would like very much to rub off).

These BLM guys are artists, I tell you. It's fascinating to watch them quietly walk into a small pen of five horses and just barely move around, using mostly their eyes to move the horses. The horses react differently each time - one group today was really flighty - but in less than a minute they usually have the correct horse running out into the alleyway to go to a new life. These guys are good at what they do.

Just for fun here are a few more photos of some of the horses that were there.

My mulie fella:

I think this yearling filly may have been a curly. She was very friendly.

One of these red horses got adopted by someone just up the road from us. I think it was the nearer one. He was a cool horse. I'm guessing he has a future as a gaming horse.

Katia wanted this next filly. We told her she could but she overheard me saying I'd be willing to sell both Scout and Cisco to make room for her to get a horse, if she'd spend time with it every day. She got upset and I offered her either this filly, Scout, or Bella, and she chose not to take the filly. I don't know if this means she wants one of the other two.

Some of the boys:

I liked this yearling:

There were a lot of horses there that I would have brought home if I had unlimited time and resources. But none more so than my little burro buddy. I hope he found an excellent, knowledgeable, loving home.

Here's a final parting shot of miss Grace. At least I think that's her name. We're still trying it on for size.

It wasn't my fault. John did it.
She's his new best girl. Big, strong, and level headed.
She's from Adobe Town HMA in Wyoming.

And I said goodbye to my little friend with the itchy ears.
It was really hard, but it was the right thing to do. I think.

Here are some photos of the adoption today. We didn't stay long, which was a good thing because of course I was falling in love with two or three of them.

This one greeted me right away. He asked for a ride home. My home, that is.
John just laughs when I talk about "my" burro.

This red fella just stared and stared at us. I love his face and eyes, and ears and nose.

This was the look on his face almost the entire time. He wasn't spooky, just very, very watchful.

(The horse on the right was my favorite out of all the boys.)

I like this rabicano butt.

This guy was a pest. Playing with the trough, pulling on the other horses' tags, and just generally being a playful baby.

A sorrel who looked a little under the weather:

Check out the neat marking on that pinto. Like a dinosaur. Or an alien.
I like the roan butt in the middle.

The roan is here again, pretty face:

This was my favorite boy. Not a good picture. He looked a lot like a mule.

Here he is again, to the left of "the looker"

Or maybe this red one is the looker. Now I'm confused.

A group of youngsters:

The girl burros.

My cute little guy.

My favorite girl. John says her face reminds him of Soxy.

The horses are all from Salt Wells Creek/Adobe Town in Wyoming. The burros are each from different HMA's. Some from California, some Arizona. I don't remember exactly where.

The horses were absolutely insane yesterday. Just about coming out of their skin. I'd gotten Scout and Cisco out, with the intention of riding Cisco and just letting Scout stand tied. Right as I was tying them up some yahoo over on the highway started gunning his dirt bike back and forth. Normally I'd expect my horses to take interest but not over-react about it. It must have been the weather, and maybe the fact that I'd rearranged some fence. Or maybe some strange alignment of the stars. Who knows what motivates these goofy critters.

After I tied him, somehow Scout got the blocker ring unclipped from the round pen and came running around, then tried to go in between Cisco and the trailer. Unfortunately Cisco was tied to the trailer and couldn't get out of the way. He just about sat back and freaked out, but just then Scout backed off. Scout is such a pushy little bugger. I took Scout in the round pen and asked him to move off, hoping he could get rid of some of his anxiety by moving his feet. He calmed down enough to pay attention and stay with me so I tied him up again, more securely, and went to finish pulling burrs out of Cisco's tail. Scout was wiggle worming around and I thought he might start rearing but he didn't. I think the bike had been put away by this point and Scout was just plain wound up.

After I was done with Cisco I stood with Scout for a while, grooming him, and he managed to calm down, so I decided to call it a day. I put him up, went back for Cisco (I wasn't about to lead both of them in that state of mind) and he gave me trouble coming back into the pasture. He decided to shoot backward and spin and rip the rope out of my hand. For no reason that I could see... When he does that I'm always tempted to just leave him and let him wear the halter and rope all day. But I caught him and calmly asked him for little maneuvers on the line, hoping to get his attention. We backed, pivoted, etc, and he did what I asked, but he has a way of doing what you're asking while not really being engaged in the activity. He stays tense, and has a far-off look in his eye. I did manage to get him to look at me and relax as I took his halter off.

Some days I wonder about horses...

Today they get the day off, I'm not in the mood and the weather is just as bad as it was yesterday. I got a bunch of work done cleaning my hay area and rearranging my feed tubs. Got to play with the tractor too. I finished my outside work just as the snow started to blow in sideways. Now I'm trying to get warm. Later I might go out and groom some of them in the pasture. It's so satisfying to see all that hair falling to the ground.

Tonight I'm making the 7MSNRanch artisan bread and cowboy chili. Yum. Looking forward to that.

This is a sculpture in Plummer, Idaho, on the Coeur d'Alene reservation. I like it a lot. Note the wolf and the eagle. The eagle is harder to see, in the rump of the horse. It would be better at another angle. I just thought it was an appy blanket until John pointed it out.We stopped to look at it on our way back from an indoor amusement park in Coeur d'Alene. I found out that I now suck at bowling (and it hurts) but I ROCK at laser tag. Out of our group of 11 I had the best score. I'm not bragging or anything... I had a blast. So did the kids.

Today I had a good day with the horses. I was going to work with all three geldings but I ran out of time.

Tonka and Bella got a partial pedicure and Cisco got the full treatment. They were all very well behaved but Tonka swished his tail a lot. It's hard to know what's because of a pissy attitude and what's caused by muscle pain. I just ignored it and anyway he was holding his hooves up for me like a total angel.

I squeezed in time for a short ride on Cisco and we really enjoyed ourselves. He gets better every time I ride him, even though I'm not riding or even working with him very often. He's still a little heavy on the bit (especially if there are mares to look at) but he at least is doing what I'm asking. I'm ready to take him on a trail ride. Just have to find someone to go along. Melissa? I will be calling you soon! Tomorrow has a 90% chance of rain or I'd be in a bigger hurry.

Tonka's hard work today was just standing tied to the round pen, taking a nap. Even with nothing to do, he still looked uncomfortable in the belly/tail area when I went to put him away. Do you see it too? The raised tail is not from excitement.

The three fat ones got to wear their muzzles for the first time.

There's a small hole in the bottom for them to get limited grass through. Cisco knows how it works. Scout, even though he's a youngster, is starting to get cresty (the muzzle also keeps him from messing with Cisco's muzzle). His mama is a prime founder candidate, and Cisco has a crest the size of Rhode Island. They don't love their muzzles. Especially Bella. She threw a hissy fit, pawing and rolling in a puddle,

galloping around, rolling some more, tossing her head,

and finally coming to me and asking nicely for it to be removed.

I regretfully declined. I hate to do it to them, but I also hate to lock them in drylot. I'll do that for part of the day but not 24/7. And of course anything is better than founder.

Mud Monster. Not a pretty sight.

They don't wear the muzzles all day. I'm going to do midday to bedtime. I need to get a gate fixed so I have a dry lot, then they can rotate in and out of there, with naked drylot time and muzzled pasture time.

Don't forget the mustang and burro adoption in Lewiston this weekend! I would love to see you there! I think I'm hanging out by myself... John doesn't enjoy spending hours on end staring at horses, I don't know why.

I'm having trouble trying to figure out how to arrange my herd. I think I've decided Tonka is going to have to stay separate from everyone else to avoid contaminating his feed with even the slightest trace of the stuff he can't have.

We tried putting Bella in with the geldings. After all they have lived together before. We were VERY lucky it ended as well as it did, with nobody hurt seriously. Turns out Cisco can't be with mares at all, period. He's just downright violent. I had taken my camera out to get some good pictures of them running around, but this is the only one I got before I realized we had a serious situation and needed to intervene. You can see the desperation in Bella's eyes here, and they'd only just gotten started. Poor girl.
Tonka tied up mildly that night after their hard run.

So I think what I'll do is put Bella and Scout together, and maybe Soxy. I can't decide on that one. I'll have to see if Scout is mean to her, and how much of a pain it is to keep them apart while Soxy eats her old lady feed.

Cisco will have to live alone. Or he can live with Tonka, but then I'll have another set of horses to supervise while they eat, so Cisco doesn't steal Tonka's supplement. What a mess of trouble these horses can be...

I rode Scout a few days back and he's definitely herd bound. He does love his buddies. I'll have to work on that. He wasn't terrible, just very concerned that he constantly know where they were. I should have ridden on Saturday but I wasn't feeling well. I can't kick this stupid virus. It keeps coming back every couple days.

The bathroom remodel is coming right along. John finally figured out how to get the toilet to work right, there was a tube that needed to be moved in the tank and that fixed it. I think I'll finish painting the trim and the ceiling today (what fun) and then call it good for a while. We need to tile the shower surround, but I don't know anything about how to do that and we're out of Home Depot gift cards anyway. So it will wait.

Yesterday we went with my sister's family and my parents to an indoor amusement park and we all had a good time. Go-carts, mini golf, bowling, arcade, and laser tag. What fun! I found out I'm no good at bowling anymore and it hurts my tennis elbow, and mini golf isn't my game. But I kicked butt at laser tag! I want to go to the bigger place in Spokane and try it there.

Spring is coming on reluctantly. The lilacs are starting to open their leaf buds and the daffodils out back are blooming. But the weather is still bad more often than not. It will have to get nice at some point! And then I'll be complaining about the heat. :)

Waiting for the vet.Impatiently.

His wolf teeth were very hard to extract. I felt bad for everyone involved. Scout was sedated but it couldn't have been fun, and I'm sure he's sore after the fact. The tech had to hold his head up for ever. And my poor vet couldn't give up but his hands were shaking long before he was done. I guess there's a ligament that holds the wolf teeth in place, and Scout's was very strong.

Poor guy.

Both of the boys had their sheaths cleaned. Neither had a big bean, but both were dirty. My vet was commenting on how Scout was pretty dirty and I thought, "you ain't seen nothin' yet." When he cleaned Tonka's he was amazed that he doesn't get infections. And I did a little cleaning on it just a couple weeks ago. He said I need to start doing it monthly rather than every two or three months. Yay. Luckily Tonka's really good for it.

We talked a bit about Tonka's diet. One question I had was exactly how much corn would cause an adverse reaction, since I found a piece of corn in my alfalfa pellets. He said even that is too much. So I called Spokane Seed in Colfax about their pea pellets and verified that they will be safe to feed since they don't process corn there. I think I'm going to try that. I can't think of anything else to do.

I also had him go over the supplement list recommended by another vet for the EPSM. They're mostly things that support muscle function. Acetyl L-carnitine, glutamine, selenium, magnesium, vitamin E, and salt. He said they all looked like good things to try. He set my mind at ease on another thing - the supplements won't hurt my dogs if they lick the feed pan. He was concerned about the cost of all these things, however. I've been afraid to add up how much it will cost monthly to feed all this stuff. But I will do that at some point.

I went to my sister's house and saw her two horses with EPSM today. They are both already improved after 4 days on just the acetyl L-carnitine. It made me want to get Tonka out and actually do some things with him to see if he feels better. Just watching him in the pasture, I think he may be feeling better. But I'm not sure. I'm wondering if I might be able to talk my lovely daughter into riding at the arena with me tomorrow if the weather is bad. Ha. It's always bad... I want some dry, windless, sunshiny weather, darn it!

I've wanted a burro for a long, long time. I'm not sure when it started. Probably when I met Peaches the donkey. She's wonderful.

Recently I thought I wanted a riding donkey. Of course I already have too many horses to ride, so that's not going to happen any time soon. But I will be doing research, you can bet on it.

I've already been reading a little about donkey training, and watching a few videos. Which should tell you I'm dedicated because I hate watching videos online.

Just now someone posted on Facebook about their horse not wanting to be caught and this idea came into my head. I had to do some mental searching to realize I stole it from a donkey training article, and that it wasn't divine inspiration. :) But I really do like the idea so I thought I'd share. A lot of the reason why I like it is that I had a horse once who loved to play "catch me if you can." I'm serious, he really had a lot of fun with it. If he could get behind something and peek around at you it was even better. So round pen exercises, chasing when he ran away, making him work, all of that didn't work. He was having fun. What finally worked was consistent interaction. As long as I was doing more with him every day than just feeding him, he was happy to come play with me. But he still plays the "catch me" game sometimes with his new owner, even though she mainly just loves on him and gives him cookies when she goes to see him. It's not a fear thing, or not wanting to be caught to work, he just likes to play the game.

Anyway, the idea went as follows. The horse is in a safe area without other horses and will allow pets and love but runs off if she sees a rope. I'd be tempted to take the halter out in plain sight, try to halter her, and let her run off. Turn my back to her and leave, going to pet and love on her horse friend somewhere within sight. Go do some chores, or just go inside for an hour or so, then go back out and repeat. If the horse is trying to have fun by playing hard to get, this takes all the fun out of it, and makes it look like more fun to be where the other horse is.

In the article about donkeys, it recommended going someplace out of sight and doing something noisy to get the donkey's curiosity going. It would want to come take part, which would make it easier to catch when you went back.

I'm really liking this idea, rather than the "I'll teach you to run off!" method. I don't have a hard to catch horse to try it on right now though. I wonder how well it would work, how long it would take, and if it would have to be an intelligent, curious horse. It would probably take a very long time (if it worked at all) with a traumatized horse that was genuinely afraid. I also don't think it would work well with a horse who is happy where they are, with other horses for companionship and plenty of good grass to eat.

And now back to the burro thing. There is an adoption just south of me in Lewiston this month. And it says they'll have burros! I want to go to volunteer, encourage prospective adopters, and to see the horses. But what if the burros don't get adopted? What if they're super sweet and want to hang out with me? Maybe I'd better not be there during the actual adoption part, just the viewing.

Here's the info on the adoption. Does anyone want to come with me?

Yesterday I took a short break from the bathroom remodel to go out and be with the horses. I was considering riding Scout but I was too tired by that point, and the kids were going to need dinner. So I just de-mudded them a bit and hung out taking pictures.

Here's Cisco showing off his good side.

Tonka coming to join us.

Notice how both Scout and Tonka have A-frame butts, but Cisco has a nice big round butt. People seem to like his build, even though he has that unsightly crested neck.

Tonka is kind of a loner since he hasn't been feeling good.

They're all loving the new spring grass.

Today I need to clean the place up to get ready for our vet visit tomorrow. My son packs the weirdest things around and makes all sorts of fanciful constructions, then leaves them. Sometimes Huck will grab bits and pieces of them and scatter them even more. It makes for an interesting looking property, and a lot of extra work for me. And with the fact that I still haven't fixed my fence from when we took down the barn, and the barn is still in need of work, we look like bunch of hillbillies I'm sure. At least I managed to talk John into getting the old toilet out of the front yard.

Today we installed a new toilet. I've never done that before and neither has John. So naturally I was worried. Then I had an old toilet in my front yard, and a new one on the couch, and I became more worried.

But it went pretty darn well. Once we'd painted behind where the toilet was going to go, we got the new toilet installed in about 15 minutes or less.

Then it was time to test it. You should have been there.

"You flush it first. I'm too scared."

"Put the seat up, I want to watch it flush."

"It bubbled. Why did it bubble?"

"How are you supposed to use a plunger in that shape of a hole?"

"Two and a half inches does make a difference."

"With all its flaws, I knew our old toilet. I don't know what to expect from this toilet... how it's going to react to certain situations."

Which is when John started to fear for my sanity.

If anyone could have seen us staring so seriously into the toilet, they would have worried about both of our sanity. And of course we both had to give it a dry run. It's 2 1/2 inches taller than our old one, and has the right shaped bowl to fit my grandma's old toilet seat. Which is AWESOME, by the way. It's made of resin filled with sharp objects like razor blades, fish hooks, and barbed wire. Oh, and band-aids.

Tonight we were probably more entertaining than TV, if only you could have been there...

No, I'm not insane, but I am dog tired after all the home improvements today! And we're nowhere near done in the bathroom, darn it. But tomorrow I'm cleaning my barn instead.

Neither of us has been brave enough to use the new toilet yet, but we must have flushed it about 20 times. It's so pretty and clean. I wish it could stay that way.

We have some new family members.

Meet Meri and Pippin. Meri is the blonde and Pippin is the redhead. Not that you can tell what color they are in my crappy pictures. The next picture has the best color.



They were labeled as Araucanas but I'm sure they aren't. They must be Ameraucanas, or maybe even Easter Eggers. According to Wikipedia there is a difference. I knew most of our colored egg layers in America weren't Araucanas, but I didn't realize Easter Eggers were even more removed from the araucanas. Whatever they are, they're supposed to lay pretty eggs, and that makes me happy.

Another thing different about this breed is their tufted cheeks, giving their faces a round look. They remind me of little owls. And they seem smart, somehow. They love to look straight at you and seem to very much enjoy staring at people. I spent some time feeding a big bunch of regular chickens and Ameraucanas once, and they are definitely different from regular chickens. That particular bunch turned out pretty flighty compared to the other breeds they were raised with, so I'm planning on holding my girls a lot.

Yes, they are named after two hobbits. Boy hobbits. But they were labeled as pullets so they should be girls. We hope. If not, we have a good soup pot.

I'm really tempted to go back tomorrow and get more. But 4 hens poop less than 6 hens, so I'm really not sure two more would be a good idea.

I like the view from up here.

Not the most fashionable pictures but I realize my blog hasn't had enough to look at lately. Scout needs a bridle path cut.

Don't ask me what I was doing here, I don't know.

Mama Cat, the partially clipped long-haired mess. Scout likes to follow her around.

He was a gem for our ride today. This is his second ride with the bit and he was more fidgety and distracted. At one point something seemed wrong so I got off and checked - he had his tongue over the bit. Not comfy. So I got him straightened out and tightened his headstall one notch and we were good to go. He was better after that but still chewing, chewing, chewing. I was thinking about when Bella got her teeth worked on last fall and she had points at the front of her molars, which the bit will pull the lips into and cause discomfort. So when we were done I felt around in there and even kind of got a look. I think he has wolf teeth. So yet another vet appointment has been made. It will make me feel good to know his teeth are in good shape for riding though.

But back to our ride. We ventured farther and farther from our comfort zone near the round pen (and near the other two geldings). I thought he'd be upset about leaving them but he was really happy to explore. Almost too happy. He'd get worried at some objects like the clothes line or propane tank, but want to keep on going. He maybe rushed a bit and didn't respond as well, but really it was so minor it was nothing to worry about. When I went to get off at the end he walked off, so I got his attention and got back on and off with no problems. I'm so proud of my "baby."

Oh! Yesterday was Scout's third birthday! I almost forgot to post about it.

He tried to get up before he was even fully out of the birth canal. I heaved him out (babies are HEAVY and slippery!) so he wouldn't kick poor Bella's insides any more than he already had.

Look at that cute little butt trying so hard to get up.
Success! And a first meal.

Hard to believe that teeny little spindly guy grew big enough to carry me around. :)

It's also hard to believe I was going to sell him. All it took was a change of thought on my part and a couple good rides and now I think he's golden. Regarding the change of thought - he used to make me crazy with his slowness. I'm so used to Tonka's quick thinking but Scout learns everything slowly. I don't think he's stupid, just a deep thinker. I think he's considering what's in it for him and whether it's worth the effort. I decided to think of him as my donkey, and laugh off his mistakes like I did with my puppy, and our relationship has hugely improved. As is almost always the case, the fault was with the human, not the horse. Which I knew, but I didn't want to fix because it seemed hard. Turns out all I had to do was change my thoughts.

I finally talked to my vet today. I wasn't expecting the test for food sensitivities/allergies to come up with anything, but it did. Tonka can't have corn, rice, or beet. I don't purposefully feed him anything with corn in it, but I find it is in his vitamins. There is rice in his probiotic. I have been feeding rice bran for the last few weeks, trying to make his food palatable for him. And he's been eating beet pulp (which he's only marginally sensitive to) for years.

So I have hope! If I cut all of these things out of his diet maybe he'll feel better. I guess it could take a couple months before it makes a difference though. It's comparable to a person with a gluten intolerance or celiac's disease, which causes cramping, diarrhea, and nausea. (I wonder if horses can't get nausea since they can't throw up?)

I also started a new treatment for the EPSM today. Instead of feeding huge amounts of fat to try to make his body burn fat, while cutting way back on starches and carbs, he will be given no extra fat (just some flax seed meal) and I have added acetyl L-carnitine. It's supposed to keep the starch burning "switch" turned on, so that he doesn't store the starches as glycogen, which is what causes his muscle trouble. I have high hopes. This particular regimen has been known to cause marked improvement in just 3 days. I also need to add a couple other things, one of which is in the mail and the other I've had to email to find out if there are any fillers that Tonka can't have. I need change his vitamin/mineral supplement too, because of the corn in HorseGuard. I don't know if I'll be able to find something without corn or rice. I wonder how much a custom supplement would cost. (cringe)

The weather is quite nice today - no moisture falling from the sky - so I'm going to go saddle Scout up and ride.