I haven't got much going on here so I thought I'd share with you some of the horses up for adoption online through the BLM. Lots of Kigers in Burns. I'm not real partial to Kigers, but I know a lot of people really like them. I see a lot of long backs and straight shoulders. I'm looking mostly at the ones in Burns, Oregon, because that's near me, and they have free shipping within 400 miles of the facility for the next 3 months. What a deal! Not that I'm adopting, but if I were, I think this would be my boy:
He's a yearling from Beaty's Butte, unfortunately a grey, which isn't my favorite color, but isn't he a tank!

This one reminds me of Bella. She's from Beaty's Butte:

This one I call the Tonka Twin, from Jackie's Butte, but he seems to have a crooked leg:

Just look at the handsome face on this one!

This one I would absolutely adopt, but he's in Arizona:

To see them all, visit here: https://www.blm.gov/adoptahorse/onlinegallery.php
(All photos are borrowed from the above website.)

If you're interested in adopting from the BLM, check out the adoption requirements here.

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming in order to show you what I was up to today.

Every now and then I get to help out with some very nice sheep at my friend's farm.

Here are two of the Great Pyrenees coming to see what's up:
Here are the sheep, coming obediently when called:

And the rest of the flock follows:

Here the ladies are in the home stretch, almost to the barn:

And here's my good buddy Angus, a really sweet & impressive dog:

Today we put hands on all 60 sheep, grabbing, holding, bending, struggling. It really was very mellow, not near as hard as it has sometimes been in the past. They are a very nice, sedate flock of sheep. Unfortunately all the bending does a number on my back. I think I really can't do it anymore. It scares me thinking what damage I may be doing to my back that I won't be able to reverse. It really bums me out, because I really enjoy the time with my friend, talking about mutual interests. And I love the sheep. They're just so sweet with their big eyes looking up at me. The dogs are a joy to visit with too, treating me like a long lost friend. I'll have to keep going up just to visit. And I'm on the schedule to work at least half of shearing day. That's not the same though, it's so rushed and chaotic.

I have to say that I am totally impressed and inspired by my friend Melissa. She's a woman farmer who does all the work on her farm, has excellent marketing skills, speaks well in front of a class, has great ideas, and is a great teacher. She actually manages to make a living solely by raising sheep. That's quite an accomplishment these days, and I applaud her.

Anyway, just a little break from the horsey monotony here on the blog, and a look at someone else's passion and life work. It's really a great thing.

Big day! Bella went for a walk outside the fence! Very, very short one, but still... We went past a garbage can and over by the old decrepit shed that's generally pretty scary to horses that aren't used to it. Then we went back. She went in and out the gate like a pro, no hesitation like I'd half expected. It was really cold, or I would have taken her about and around a bit more. And this way she got outside her comfort zone, was fairly stressed, but it was short and sweet and she got to see that it wasn't that big a deal. And she didn't overreact at all. I love this horse. I really need to do this sort of thing more often, it's such a rush. Maybe we'll go for a real walk tomorrow. Hope the wind dies down.

Todays' Bella Belly shot.

Sorry, I don't really have much of interest to report today. Except that I haven't left the house in almost a week and I'm going nuts. I almost got the car out of the driveway today, just 30 feet from the top on my last try. I felt like an animal futilely trying to jump out of a cage, over and over and over...

Catch y'all on a happier note some other time! Here's wishing for an early spring!

Another Picture from the Porch:

Aren't they adorable? That corner of the pasture is Bella's favorite hangout. I'm sure that, given the choice, she'd have her baby there sometime, then it would roll under the fence, get up, and toddle off the drop off into the creek. Of course, she won't be given the choice.

I have some fencing work to do before the baby gets here. I'm going to cut that pasture in half so that the pond and the lower half of the pasture that can flood are not accessible. Plus of course adding fencing lower down so baby can't go under.

Looks like I need to replace my temporary fence that you can see in the picture too. There are 25 or so tiny golden willows being protected by that fence. May as well make a better fence since it'll be a LONG time before the trees can handle horses around them. I can't wait to plant more trees this spring!

Here's another story that starts with, "I had just gotten done saying..."

In this case, "My horses aren't stupid enough to run around on this ice and get hurt." Not five minutes later:






Granted, they didn't get hurt. So I guess what I should have said was that my horses aren't clumsy enough to run around in this stuff and get hurt. Because there is a lot of ice under all that snow.

I had just gotten done mentioning that the footing outside is no good for walking, much less horse training, when I went out and haltered Tonka and proceeded to fall spectacularly on my butt. Tonka didn't know what to think of it. He scuttled backwards away, and I felt his hoof lightly against my thigh. I'm glad he didn't step on me. Then he stood there and looked at me with his big goofy face, asking why the heck I was on the ground, while I took stock of my situation. I thought I might have hurt my left wrist, but not badly, and as I pushed snow out of the way I realized I was on a thick layer of smooth ice under the snow. I crawled forward a bit trying to judge the extent of the ice, and considered crawling all the way back to solid ground. I figured the neighbors might drive by and think I was strange, so I went ahead and got up and walked back very carefully. I HATE walking on ice. I would never want to ski. I just don't get into the sliding thing. I guess I'm probably just a klutz. And it turns out my wrist is totally fine. My back is sore, but it was hurting pretty bad before the fall, so that probably wasn't the cause.

A hoofprint in the snow, before the thaw and re-freeze that brought the ice.

Once we got back to halfway decent ground, I asked him to do some basic stuff, just involving a few slow steps at a time, while Bella finished her alfalfa. (She's eating it now, yay!) Then I scratched him all over, looked at his teeth, let him go and scratched him some more.

Then I went and rubbed on Bella, haltered her, scratched her all over, unhaltered her, looked at her teeth, scratched her some more. She is such a sweetie, and so mellow.

According to her teeth, she is exactly the age she was supposed to be, coming up on turning 3.

Tonka is losing his incisors in the corners of his mouth, which is right on schedule too. He should have them all grown in by 4.5 yrs old. His canines are pretty prominent now compared to last June when they were teeny little points just poking through.

So, now you know what I was up to when I wasn't actually working today. It was a wonderful break, standing in the sun with my sweet mustangs.

Bella Baby Belly pictures for you!

Take a look at this horse, he looks just like Tonka! You should adopt him! Free shipping within 4oo miles of Burns, Oregon this month!

Baby kicked me! Bella is definitely pregnant. He/she rolled all over under my hand, kicked and thumped, disappeared for a while and then came back. It was so cool! I love baby movements. It brought tears to my eyes. I pressed on him/her to get more movement, and that kind of ticked Bella off, the two of us socializing through her belly. Oh how I wish I had x-ray vision glasses and could look in and see! Her herd is known to have lots of pintos, but all the horses at the adoption were pretty much solid, so I don't know... Hope it's built well too.

So, since I'm feeling movement, she's at least six months along. Which I pretty much could have guessed, since she was gathered in late July. That does narrow it down a bit though. I suspect she's further along than that, but I'm no expert.

I STILL can't entice her to eat any alfalfa. Remember, she's only 2, so she's growing herself and her baby. I want to make sure she has every chance possible to reach her full potential.

Now I need to start thinking about adding another strand or Horse Guard Fence so baby can't escape under the fence.

So exciting!

This evening I went out and played with Bella a bit. Well, she wouldn't have called it play, she had a little bit of a hard time... We got a little stuck with her trying to walk to far ahead of me, but when we finished that was all worked out and she stayed put right where she was supposed to, except sometimes when turning with her on the inside of the turn. Before that we disengaged hindquarters then practiced Chris Cox's "direct and drive" which is like lunging except you only move them in a half circle. Backed up with a meaningful look and finger shake at the point of her shoulder. Practiced walking over poles. THAT was not an easy one. But we got to where she'd do it pretty well. In one direction she tended to bowl into me with her shoulder. On the last couple trips across she slowed down and walked nicely. By then it was dark. I let her go (oh, by the way, she was totally easy to catch, walked right up to me) and then she waited at the gate to be let back into her small pen so I could feed her. Gave her a little alfalfa, I'd really like to get that worked back into her diet, but the darn horse doesn't like it! She wouldn't eat pellets this morning either. Too weird. She loves her Calf Manna and Black Oil Sunflower Seeds though! Thank goodness I finally found something she's eager to eat. I'd really like to get the added calcium and protein of alfalfa into her though in case she's carrying a baby. I'll figure something out eventually...

I leave you with a photo of our culinarily disabled horse refusing an apple slice. (Tonka really enjoyed eating her share too though!)

The title of this post shall be I Ponied My Giraffe While Riding Bella,or Picture Overload. (Don't forget you can click on the picture for a larger version. Some just don't look like much all small like that...)

Bella: Ears:

EARS! LOL!:

Really trying to schmooze the lady:

Hi Mom!:

See what I mean about the giraffe?:

Pretty Bella, restful picutre:

"Can I come over?":

Bella Belle Belly from Behind:

He wants a piece of that dog:

Landing pheasant tracks, too cool!:
Bye bye now:

Here's my big handsome goof watching the four wheelers (turned out not to be a snowmobile).

Here's Bella's pretty self. My camera really doesn't pick up color well in the snow. There's probably a setting I don't know about that will compensate for that. I'm a lazy picture taker.

Here's what I found sleeping in my bed yesterday, a little while after my son left the room. Angus LOVES to sleep in my spot. Not sure why he's always dirtying up MY side of the bed...

Here's a cute (if fuzzy) picture of Maya, telling me all about how she loves to help with chores.

I spoke too soon about Tonka being well. I assumed, based on poo piles and a lack of nastiness in his tail and on his back legs, that things had firmed up. He had a little squirt while I was out there though. Very little. I think he is improved a lot, if not totally well.

It is a BEAUTIFUL day! The sun is shining, the wind is gone, and Tonka is well! I buried my face in his warm furry shoulder and inhaled his good horse smell and sent a huge wave of gratitude and joy out into the world.

Bella is having another taste of freedom today. She wouldn't go out the gate by herself so I grabbed some baling twine and wrapped it around her poll and helped her through. She and Tonka are happily munching away together, curiously watching the guy who's trying to unstick his snowmobile up on the road.

I think I'll go take some pictures before I start cleaning up the house for our little New Year's get-together tonight. Be back later!

I'm just dropping in to give a quick Tonka update. He seems about the same, diarrhea may be slightly improved. He's happy and was enjoying many kisses from my daughter earlier. Have a wonderful evening!

He had a couple roundworms and a couple tape worm eggs. Not too bad really, but she did want me to worm him now with a product that contains praziquantel. Luckily I was going to do that in a couple weeks anyway so I had Quest Plus on hand. It goes against all my instincts to give wormer when he's already feeling bad, but she said it won't hurt and should help. I wormed him just now so I'll have plenty of time to watch him before bedtime. That stuff smells BAD and I'm sure tastes even worse. He's getting tired of the tubes of icky stuff I'm thrusting into his mouth. He doesn't seem to mind the Probios too much, but all the rest - Ick.

Just now I went out again to check Tonka's water levels. Still the same as they were after his big drink this morning. He was looking depressed so I let him out. He took a small drink out of the trough and then followed me all over the place. Ate some snow. He checked out the sound his lip made on my coat, all the while not looking at me as if I'd not notice his sneaky wiggling lip if his attention was directed elsewhere. I decided to let him out into the big pasture until feeding time. I marked the trough where the water is now, and it's not currently heated so I know the water's not going to evaporate away. Still no word on the poo I sent to the vet this morning. Starting to wonder if they forgot me. I'd like to know if I need to get him some pepto or something. I think I'll go call them.

Ugh, what a morning! I can't believe it's not a lot later than it is. I've been trudging around in the snow forever.

Tonka is fine, well, as fine as could be with awful diarrhea. He's in his little pen, drank 4-5 gallons in the last 12 hours. When you add the water that's in his soaked hay, I think that's enough.

I looked all over the place in my tack/feed area for the electrolyte paste I had forgotten I had. I couldn't find it anywhere. My tack room is a lot more organized now though... Then I remembered the first aid kit in my trailer. Duh! Trudged way out there through the ever deepening snow (6-10 inches) and found not only the electrolytes, but also a whole tube of Banamine! I can't believe I forgot about that and sent my husband out into a snow storm to get some. Then drove to town on bad roads with my kids the next day to get more. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I guess I don't keep my head on straight in times of emergency as well as I thought I did. So now I have 2 tubes (6 doses) of Banamine that I hope I never have to use, that will expire at some point. The stuff isn't cheap...

THEN I decided to fill troughs. Got the one that was 2 hose lengths from the house filled no problem. Dragged hoses around to the other end of the house, added a third hose, hooked it up, turned it on, had a blockage. Darn frozen hose! I did drain them well! I wonder if when it was raining cats and dogs, some water got in through the holes in the hose (that one has several duct taped leaks). Whatever... I ended up putting that hose in the trough with the tank heater, and bucketing the water out of Tonka's trough (which he isn't using) into the other to raise the water level over the coiled hose. It'll thaw pretty quickly that way. But I think I'll wait until tomorrow to tackle that job again.

So there you go. My life story for today. Now I'm off to do dishes and laundry and all kinds of other glamorous stuff. :)

Still not sure what's up with Tonka. I don't know if he's drinking. Now he has bad diarrhea. Taking a fecal sample to the vet tomorrow, and penning him up tonight so I can monitor him better. Hope he doesn't do anything stupid when he's stuck in a small area. I knew a young horse, three year old like Tonka now that I think about it, who was kept in a stall and run and died from it. He liked to rear and play and he got his foot caught between the panels of his pen and broke his leg almost clean off and bled until he was found in the morning. Then the vet got lost and he had to be there like that for another 45 minutes, although they did get his leg out. Lovely story eh... Sorry. But you see why I worry... Tonka covers a LOT of ground in a day, and rears and jumps around a bit. Penning him up freaks me out.

I'm still soaking his hay, giving him salt, and dosing him with Probios (good gut bugs, like yogurt for us humans).

I remembered another sure-fire way to make them drink. Put dish soap in their mouth. Going to try that when I go out to build the pen and feed.

Here's Tonka enjoying his nice warm, wet hay. I soak it for a couple hours in hot water in a sealed container so it'll steam the hay that isn't submerged (I can only lift so much water...), then I drag it out in the toboggan and dump it in there for him. I leave the water with the hay rather than draining it like you would with a horse who needs limited sugars. He doesn't drink the water though.

And here's Bella eating her breakfast. She's a good, pretty girl.

I think Tonka is fine! Hooray! He's still on limited rations, with his hay soaked to get more water into him. But I found 5 fresh poop piles out there tonight. Poop is a beautiful thing. Especially well-hydrated poop.

Bella was being a real sweetheart tonight. Standing droopy eyed and relaxed while I untangled her mane. (I got some Cowboy Magic detangler for Christmas, but keep forgetting to take it out with me). Then I checked her bag (or lack thereof), and rubbed some of the crusty dirt off of it. She loves that.

I really enjoy spending quiet time with the horses when it isn't feeding time. Just standing, exchanging breath. It's wonderful.