Scout is a baaaad baby! Here I've been thinking how sweet he is, and it turns out that's just because I haven't been asking him to do anything. He had his hooves trimmed today and he was a HUGE pain in the butt. I've got my work cut out for me... I'm going to start tying him for long periods and he's got to learn to behave better with his feet and quit being so pushy in general on the ground. Probably not a lot of work involved, but handling him every day would be a good starting point. Although right now I'm frozen, I smell like a horse turd, and the idea of working with a horse isn't very appealing.

Tonka wasn't extremely well-behaved either. How embarassing. He tends to test me a lot, I just expect it, get it over with, and go on. So I guess it makes sense that he'd test a new person trimming him. He learned not to do that. Hopefully he remembers and we don't have to go over it again later.

John made Coda's appointment for tomorrow. We decided to take him to WSU to have him euthanized. I realized the only reason I was thinking about burying him here was for the kids, and I don't think it will really matter all that much in the grand scheme of their lives. The longer Coda has to stay in this cold the more miserable he is, and getting a backhoe or excavator just wasn't happening right away. I am so glad John is taking him in for me. I can't hardly stand the idea of it. If it was at home I think I would have been able to handle it, but not at WSU.

Boy, now that the appointment is made it's really getting to me. This is real, and it sucks.

I think I'll go take a hot bath, get warmed up and wash off the horse stink.

Well, for the first time since the saddle rolling and concussion incident, we loped! It was way more nerve wracking than I thought it would be. But I didn't fall off, he didn't fall down, and it was actually kinda fun! He picked up the wrong lead a couple times and crossfired once, but mostly we did just fine. I'm sure I'm the one screwing him up there because he's been loping pretty nicely in the round pen, for the most part. I wish I knew why he is suddenly okay with loping after hating it and being totally uncoordinated earlier this year. The cold weather making him frisky is all I can come up with. Or maybe there was a physical issue that got better. I would have possibly thought it was this new trim, but he was doing fine that same day before the trim. I really don't see a difference in his way of going since then. Whatever it is, I'm glad he's moving better. Because I can learn to ride better but I'm not sure I could have made my horse quit being a klutz if he couldn't even lope on his own.

I think the next thing to work on is counting cadence at the trot and feeling when I need to cue for the lope so I'm not messing him up.

Oh, and he's mighty handsome in his new pad. I found my camera but the battery was dead. One of these days I'll get a picture.

I'm not sure where my camera is so I'll give you pictures from the other day. I never was able to edit the video. Just picture me on all fours cutting his toes and baby talking, with him watching suspiciously, checking with me every now and then by sniffing at my face.

Where'd my toes go?

Before:

After:

You can see he still needs his heels brought down as soon as we can manage it, and there may have been a little founder going on in that foot, but I think he'll be just fine.

John and I had a wonderful anniversary weekend. What's with all the anniversaries? Linda, Lea, and I all chose a great time of year to get married. Unless you were getting married this year. It's too darn cold this year. Although I suppose you could get married inside.

John bought me an awesome new saddle pad. I hope it's as great as I think it's going to be. It's a Classic Equine ESP contoured pad. I used to scoff at memory foam pads, because I know they compress when heated, but this one has so much felt bottom and woven wool top, I think it will be a good pad. The pattern isn't as pretty as the non-contoured pad they make, but it was so stiff and square I was afraid it would press down on his withers. On this one there's lots of soft padding through the bars and relief through the spine, without bulk at the bottom. Tonka and I tried it out last night but it was COLD and my legs were going to fall off so we didn't ride long.

We rode right in front of Anchor's pen, and boy howdy did he think that was strange! He staaaared at us, and if we got too close he'd do a little spin and then stare some more. Funny. I wonder if his owners ever ride around his pen at home. I made sure to dismount while he was watching, then I petted Tonka a bunch and put away the tack. After that I took Tonka up to where I keep Anchor's treats and fed him a bunch right in front of Anchor. He got interested enough to come up and sniff real deeply, but he wouldn't take a treat from my hand. I've also been making sure to pick up all of Tonka's feet whenever I'm sure Anchor is watching. I don't know if it makes a difference, but I'd like him to see that it doesn't hurt.

Today Anchor made progress toward halter breaking. He's giving to pressure pretty well and was even following me around in one direction. In the other direction he'd cheat. He'd step sideways kinda sorta toward me, but the foot that was stepping would always sneak behind the other foot, so he was kinda sorta stepping back at the same time. He would also occasionally get overwhelmed and spin/bolt/rear away from me. Which would get the rope wrapped around his neck so I'd have to flick it forward over his head, which he didn't like but oh well, he made the decision to put himelf in that situation. After a few times of that he realized it was easier to give to pressure and get his release than it was to bolt. But we're really going to have to work on getting to the point where he realizes bolting isn't going to do him any good. Otherwise once he goes out he'll get loose.

All in all, things are good.

Two posts in one morning. Yeah, I'm bored. Not that I couldn't be doing dishes or something. But I don't want to.

So I saw this dogfood commercial recently that advertised "prebiotics" in their food. I had never heard that term before. I finally got around to looking it up.

Probiotics (which I feed to my horses) - dietary supplements that contain (rather than promote) beneficial bacteria.

Prebiotics (which I just learned about) - non-digestible food ingredients that stimulate the growth or activity of bacteria in the digestive system which are beneficial to the health of the body. Typically, prebiotics are carbohydrates (such as oligosaccharides), but the definition does not preclude non-carbohydrates. The most prevalent forms of prebiotics are nutritionally classed as soluble fiber. To some extent, many forms of dietary fiber exhibit some level of prebiotic effect.

I stole this info from Wikipedia. My niece isn't allowed to use Wikipedia for reports at school because "anyone can put info on there" but I consider it to be at least somewhat reliable, and good enough for my own needs most of the time.

I don't think I'm going to worry too much about whether I'm adding prebiotics to my horses' feed. They get plenty of fiber and carbs in their hay.

On another note, I am so excited! We get to go drop the kids and have a fun time shopping around Spokane and go out for our anniversary dinner. If John doesn't mind Greek I'm hoping to go to Opa! They have this appetizer called Flaming Sagnaki that is really good even though I'm not usually a fan of that kind of cheese. And it's served on fire, which is always really fun.

We're hopefully going to stop off at a tack sale and then drop the kids, then shop for a TV stand at my favorite store in all creation - Cost Plus World Market. I might buy some new glasses for the kitchen. We have too many that match right now, I like to keep them all different so we know whose is whose (and variety brings spice to life). Then a stop at the feed store. My dream day! We'll have to go to Home Depot too so John can look at tools. I feel like there was something I needed from there too... My memory is terrible lately! I was telling my sister yesterday that I think I caught her Chemo Brain somehow.

Speaking of which, funny story. My sister was visiting with one of her neighbors, who is kind of a smartass, and he suddenly blurts out, "So what's with the hat?" like it's ugly and why would you wear it. She, being a smartass back, says, "I'm bald. I have cancer." She assumed he knew, but he didn't. He was mortified, but she had a good laugh at his expense. Poor guy.

Yesterday was a good horse day. I let Anchor have the day off and I hauled Tonka over to my sister's. It was cold and windy so we never did end up riding, although I did ride for a few minutes when I got home. But I did work with him in the round pen a bit. He had more energy than I've seen in him for a long time. Probably mostly the cold and wind getting to him, but I haven't ridden him in a month or so either. He was offering to lope! He hates to lope. So I took him up on his offer and he threw in a rude buck or two but he did lope nicely around quite a bit. Perhaps we'll be able to get to work on that under saddle soon.

On another excellent note, I got to watch someone else toil away trimming his hooves. It was wonderful! His sole gets so hard and it's a job I really wish I didn't have to do. Now I may not have to, because I think I may have finally found someone who does a good job. I'm excited. A friend of Amy's is working toward certification as a Natural Balance trimmer. She's new enough to it that she still cares about doing a good job, and her trim looks great. I love it. I have a few reservations about Natural Balance, mainly how they do their rocker and dress the hoof wall, but I'm willing to give it a try.

So I think I'm a saddle junkie. My sister bought a Wintec western saddle, and aside from the fact that I'd be embarassed to be seen riding in a synthetic saddle, I really like it! It's way more comfortable than my heavy, expensive, custom saddle. Tonka seemed to like it too. And she's wanting to possibly get rid of it. But three saddles for one horse - ridiculous! Ooh, but hey, Scout will need a saddle next year... I wonder if it would fit him. And then I'd have to get a job to feed my saddle habit.

Oh, and Tonka kicked my puppy yesterday! The dumb puppy insisted on playing behind him, and I was distracted by my sister, so I didn't catch it in time, and next thing I know - yipe yipe yipe yipe yipe! He was fine, although my sister said he did get launched a little ways. Hopefully he learned a lesson. I got after Tonka too, but I'm not sure he really got it.

12 degrees when I got up this morning. Frozen pipes. Dang it, I forgot to close the pumphouse door. Luckily the pipes don't burst when they freeze. We've got a heater on out there now.

"School is a safe and inviting place to learn and take risks." This is something my son's teacher said, and I'd never thought of school that way. I've never really thought of taking risks as good, but duh, kids do that all the time in order to learn what works in the world and what doesn't. I myself could do with taking a few more risks instead of constantly worrying about what might happen.

I thought of the teacher's statement this morning as Anchor bobbed his head up and down, back and forth, unsure, obviously wanting to try something but not sure whether it would be okay. I love that he's thinking about trying things, seeing what works. I love that he's starting to see me as a safe place to try. I especially loved the two times he touched me today, even though he startled and thought something terrible was going to happen after he did it. He sniffed me lots of times today, and he wasn't willing to do that before, other than the one time a while back.

I will get back to Anchor in a minute.

Tonka went back to the vet for a re-check on his eye today. The vet was stumped, because it's not bothering him. So the little bit of cloudiness that's left could be scarring, but it was never a big enough wound that it should scar. She introduced me to a new term. She told me to "benign neglect" it, which apparently means look closely at it twice a week, make sure no blood is pooling inside the eyeball, and leave it alone unless something is wrong.

I also got quotes on euthanasia for Coda today. WSU charges $265 including disposal. I couldn't possibly be the one to take him, they make you sit in the waiting room crying and filling out paperwork and then a foreign vet you barely understand comes and asks you questions. I've done this before, can you tell? John could take him though. As an alternative (and this was the original plan) this vet charges $150ish for a farm call and euthanasia and we'd bury him here, so would have to rent an excavator. I'm still not sure what we're going to do, but it needs to be done soon. I know we were so lucky to have him for so many years, he really surprised us all, but I wish we had more time. He's very unsteady on his feet and easily confused now. And the temperatures are really dropping. :(

Back to the good stuff. Why would you possibly need a hacksaw and a chisel in your horse work? Hoof trimming! I got Anchors toes knocked off on his front feet today. He wasn't ready to pick up his feet, and my nippers couldn't handle this amount of overgrowth anyway, so I bought a new blade for the saw and dug out a couple chisels and a hammer. He did SO FREAKING AWESOME! I would post a video but my computer is stupid and won't let me edit it, so I can't. I might ask John to figure it out for me, because it's so darn cool I just have to share it. It's the worst trim job I've ever done but it was a wonderful accomplishment. I think he feels better now. I also think he foundered on one front hoof at some point.

Overall, it was a wonderful horse day.

A few quick thoughts on Anchor. Linda asked if he'll keep his training when he goes home. I can't really say. I sure hope so. It really depends on his owners. It's going to be a huge time commitment.

Another thought based on what Linda said about having to hurry with Beautiful's training. I think everyone probably agrees that there's a happy medium. It's not good to rush faster than the horse can handle, but I also think it's not good to take your sweet time gentling a mustang. They're going to need their hooves trimmed and other routine care that you just can't give them if you don't get your work done with them. And wouldn't if be awful if they did something stupid and were really hurt and you couldn't get near them to treat them.

Again, it comes down to a huge time commitment. But all horses should be a huge time commitment. They deserve your time. Especially if they're kept in unnatural conditions (such as a stall). If they're in a herd they probably do just fine if you leave them alone, but you'll find out on farrier day or the day of the big ride whether your lack of time with them was detrimental to their training. Bottom line is, all horses need some care, which means they need some time and training. Whether you're able to worm them, trim their feet, have them treated by a vet, etc. is a direct reflection on the amount of effort and time you've put in. Who was it who said, "Show me your horse, and I'll tell you who you are," or something to that effect? Boy, I'd be nervous meeting that person. I think he's long dead though.

I'm not claiming I'm perfect. Tonka gets rude in situations where he's nervous, like at the vet's. He's fidgety most of the time. Scout still gives me some trouble at hoof trimming time. Everything is a work in progress. I'm just saying horse ownership should be seen as a responsibility, not a hobby, not just fun. Although I do think it's fun. :) And I know I'm preaching to the choir. I guess I just felt a little babbly this morning.

I haltered Anchor again last night, gave him a pile of treats, and then took the halter off.

Today was not a walk in the park. He didn't want that thing going around the side of his face and slipping over his nose. Or maybe he just didn't like the body position I have to get in to do that. Kinda threatening, really, with my right arm raised by his neck and my left arm coming at his nose. While we weren't progressing on that we were making a lot of progress on giving to pressure and even some lateral flexion with the halter on his neck.

I decided to give the other side a try, turned the halter inside out and turned him around. It was a no-go, I could tell right away he wasn't ready for that, but it made me realize how far behind he is on that side. So we got caught up a bit there.

So I went back to his left side and started again and ended up rubbing all over his face except his soft tissue on his nose. His chin was touchy too but I did rub there a bit. His lips were not as big an issue. I asked him to give to pressure off his nose bone, which he did beautifully. Also his jaw bone, but understandably his head had a tendency to pop up a bit. Then I reached under and rubbed his jaw and lips on the other side, eventually slipping the halter up that side and over his nose. Once I had it tied on I gave him several treats, then I took it off and put it on 2 more times, with rewards each time.

So what started out rough today (and I admit I was getting frustrated) ended up passably smooth. I hope he remembers and is easier rather than harder next time.

I have so much to tell you today! I shouldn't have decided not to blog yesterday.

So.. Yesterday I roped Anchor. NOT in the classic sense of the word. I slid the rope over his neck and fed the other end through the metal ring on the end. Then I worked it up his neck and we worked a bit on releasing to pressure, but really most of his time was spent learning to cope with the rope. He'd spin away and get it wrapped around his butt or over his back and he didn't like that.


When we were finished I felt like this whole exercise really brought him forward in the trust department. He was scared to death, and then he was fine. It was a good learning experience.

Later in the day my sister was able to come over and visit with him for the first time. She couldn't stand it, she had to try "round penning" him. In her experience that's how you train a horse and she thought maybe it just hadn't been done right. She was very low key, no agression, just assertiveness when needed, and she just asked him to walk, with a few trot transitions, changing direction now and then. By the end of maybe 5-10 minutes of this he was stressed, breathing way harder than he should have been for that amount of exercise and he had checked out. Head turned away, wouldn't look at her, would do as he was told, would allow a touch, but wouldn't interact in any way.

This was a little bit of a setback for me, but not much, and it showed me that I hadn't misjudged when I decided which way to go with this horse. So really it was a good thing.

Someone commented that he's sure setting the pace. He is, and I'm totally fine with that. There are times when the horse needs to be allowed to set the pace, wouldn't you agree? He's been unhandeable for almost 3 1/2 years, I'm not going to feel bad that it's taken me almost a month to get a halter on him while keeping him mostly comfortable with the whole process. And that with over 9 days off because I had family obligations. This particular mustang needs humans even less than any other horse I've met. He could easily have been dubbed untrainable and sent to the canner. But he's coming around. To see his face asking me "What should we do now?" rather than resignedly waiting for what I'm going to do to him is like - well, I can't even tell you. It's beautiful.

This isn't to say I haven't ridiculed myself in my head over the time we're taking. Thinking proudly of how far we've come, looking forward to showing my sister our progress, I then imagined what people who watch Clinton Anderson would think of all this. Why couldn't I just put him in the round pen for a couple hourse and have him broke to ride? Well, I can't and I won't, and I'm not sure anyone could. So that's that. You take the time it takes, and you ignore the jibes, even if they're your own.

Oh wait - did you catch that? I said it's taken me blah blah blah to get a halter on him.

Look at my big brave boy today!
In the picture above he's enjoying his treat reward just after I tied the halter on. Not a flattering picture but it kind of shows my rope setup. The ring allows the rope to slide freely. Don't try this with a rope that's going to bind down on their neck and not come loose easily.

Then my versatile mustangin' rope becomes a very long lead, with just the addition of a snap.

He's doing just awesome.

He gives to pressure beautifully on his timid side, and not quite so well on his brave side. But that's normal. We didn't work long once the halter was on. We'd been at this for a while and I figured this was more than enough progress for one morning.

I told him I'd take it off again if he let me put it on, and I kept my word. We'll go through the whole process again next time. I can't wait to get back out there. But for now I've got a to-do list that's going to take most of the day.

Just Playing. :)

The Many Faces of Anchor

Today we made great face progress, but also something more. It's that intangible thing that he's holding back. Trust, try, interest, working-togetherness, letting-down-of-the-guard, friendship? That thing you can't make them give you. You can't train them to give it to you. You can only keep giving your best until you earn it. All the good intentions in the world won't earn it, but time, patience, and quiet consistency will. I don't know what to call it. It's not really there with him, but there was something like that peeking through today occasionally. I think if I didn't have these human goals he might have an easier time giving it to me, but I'd like to send him home halter broke with his hooves trimmed, so I'm making sacrifices. Hopefully he'll get that "thing" with his owner. Then I wonder, have I got it backward? If I forgot about getting a halter on him, would that "thing" come? Would everything else then fall into place? I don't think so, not that quickly. But there's no guarantee this method will get me there that quickly either. For now I'll keep going, feeling out the situation, and trying to get a little bit of both.

We are back home. And it rained! The dust is gone! Oh glorious day. Eventually I'll get tired of the wet, but not yet.

The funeral was interesting. It was good to see everyone but I couldn't help thinking I wished my grandma was there too. She would have loved a get-together like that.

Huck was so happy to get home. I underestimated how difficult it would be to travel with a puppy. He was attached to me by a leash most of the time. Some of the time he was in his crate. He didn't get a whole lot of chance to run and play. And he missed his doggie friends.

We saw bighorn sheep in the Gorge both times through, and we saw a whole bunch of mule deer somewhere near Hooper. One of them was suicidal, but John managed to hit the brakes hard and fast enough to avoid it. That sure puts some spice in life.

I have a cold, or maybe the flu. I had a fever. That makes it the flu, doesn't it? I can never remember the difference. I think the fever is gone but the coughing and snot aren't much fun.

An update on my dog who "isn't quite right" and I fear she has cancer: bloodwork was normal. Which is good, but we still need to figure out what's up. He wants me to treat her for an ulcer and worm her. If those don't make a difference we'll do a chest x-ray and look for a tumor.

The horses seemed fine when I fed last night, except for Coda, who is having more trouble getting around. I don't want to dwell too much on that right now, but his time is coming. I am very late to feed this morning so I'd better get off this computer and get to it! More Anchor news will be reported as it happens. :)

My vet probably thinks I'm nuts. I had to reschedule an appointment twice within the same day. I hadn't known my sister needed help getting to her chemo today. So I made the appointment for 8am today. Which meant getting out of here no later than 7:30, which would just barely get me there on time. At 7:17 my sister called. "Can you take my dog too?" Oh. My. Gosh. Three dogs? One being her slightly dog aggressive dog? Sure, of course I will. I'm a sucker after all. So I had to run out the door right that instant. She's not exactly on the way to the vet's.

We were only a few minutes late, and the dogs mostly behaved. I even managed to get each one of them individually on the scale. The biggest problem was Huck trying to play with Bella (Amy's dog). Luckily the vet had plenty of time and didn't mind me bringing in an extra dog with no notice.

Huck got his shots, India had her blood drawn, and poor Bella had stitches from her spaying removed and her joint palpated. The joint right above the paw, I guess it would be like our wrist. She had a porcupine quill lodged in the joint and they removed it, but it's not getting better. Poor girl, she is a heavy dog, all dense muscle, and having only 3 legs to walk on is hard for her. Plus you could tell that what the vet was doing hurt really bad.

They must have a porcupine colony near their house. I can't imagine how much they've spent on vet bills for their dogs because of porcupines.

So that was my exciting morning. Now I'm going to go clean out Anchor's area. I wish I could work with him instead, but poop happens. Then off to Spokane for chemo and maybe a stop at the tack store (although the husbands aren't too thrilled with that idea) and then home to finish getting ready for the trip. Crazy day.

There's a wind coming in from the east that's full of smoke and dust. Anchor isn't too fond of wind, but he's not a total basketcase by any means. Just sometimes it makes his work with me a little harder for him. He contains himself well, but not quite as well as usual.

Anchor made a lot of good progress today. No leg work, I decided to concentrate on the halter. I visualized how I put a halter on and thought of the steps I need to take to make that okay for him. I don't know how I'll ever get it over his nose. Not that I'm even anywhere near trying that yet. I rubbed him with the bunched up halter on both sides and then let it out to flop around on his neck and chest while I scratched him. I got as far forward as I could. It kind of flicked him between his jawbones underneath and boy did he not like that! I scratched there with just my hand instead. Same thing on the side of his jaw. The halter rope near his eye made him skittish.

Then I hung the halter in my left hand as I do when about to put on the halter, scratched under his neck, and ran my right hand up over his neck and scratched there. I can't press my body too close to him, so my two hands couldn't meet on the other side, but I think the almost hug that we did do is awesome progress. And he really wasn't nervous about it at all. I was surprised.

The thing that bothered him the most today: brushing. I decided to try brushing him. He's kinda grody. Flaky skin and dirt. He didn't like the weird rhythmic pressure and brushing motion. It only took a few minutes though before I saw signs that he actually liked it. Cool.

Oh, and another thing, he's getting one-sided again. Most of my work has been on his left, because of the halter stuff. I need to fix that.

After working with Anchor I moved Scout in with the old horses. He's such a sweetheart. He's like my puppy, happy to follow. He's been hanging out at the gate wanting something to do. When things settle down around here I think I'll start ponying him.

Feeling better at the moment. The kids didn't take it too hard, but they didn't know my grandma well. They both surprised me by insisting that they want to go to the funeral and John wants to go too. I thought I'd be going alone. It will be good to have company. As long as my son behaves. That kid picked a bad day to have a bad day today. We butted heads most of the day.

I'm keeping myself occupied adding pictures to my Facebook account. They take forever to load! I realized I really didn't have many family pictures on there, but I do have turkey pictures. A little backward...

Well... I don't really have much else to say. No actually, I do! I have a little gripe. Why on earth do people insist on talking over each other? I often wonder why I even bother talking. If people won't put forth the effort to listen why should I put forth the effort to speak? I totally am okay with the talking-over issue if you're having a heated conversation with a friend, both parties passionate, feeding off each other, adding to the story/discussion/debate/whatever. I'm talking about pointless unrelated blather that cuts off whoever is speaking. It's like a slap in the face and people don't even realize they do it. Heck, I probably do it. Sorry to anyone I've done that to. Smack me next time. I'm probably just being too sensitive, but it has been bugging me lately.

Horse stuff... Hmm... Nothing much today. I wasn't in a good place for horse work. But I did scratch Anchor's jaw on the other side, and underneath a bit. No progress on the hooves.

Good morning, cold morning. I think today is going to be a great day. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it, but I know I need to do laundry and I'd like to do something fun with the kids. Maybe go to the park. I also haven't ridden my horse in a long time, couple weeks at least, so I might try to fit that in.

It was 32 degrees this morning! Probably colder since I didn't look a the temperature until after sunup. And I slept with my windows open. Now I've got the heat on for a few minutes. I had to give in and do it, my fingers were about to fall off. So there you have it, the heat has been turned on and summer is over.

Yesterday Katia and I had a great time shopping. I didn't find what I needed at the craft store but I did make myself a necklace and buy myself a jacket. Peacoat type thing. Katia hadn't heard of one. I think she thought I said pee coat. It was really funny, how she asked me "What did you just say?" I was feeling bad about spending the money until John told me how much he's going to spend on a Seahawks jersey today. I told him I'm going to go back out and go shopping again!

Hope the Seahawks win today, it's John's first time at a game. He was really excited.

Grandma is still hanging in there. Just sleeping. Her body is shutting down but her heart is strong, so it could be a few days. They'll keep her asleep though. She's having lots and lots of visitors. There's a lot of speculation on whether she can hear them. I used to think people in that state could hear, probably from all the coma movies they made when I was a kid. I don't know what to think now. It makes me want to go give her a hug and tell her I love her, just in case she can hear me, but I can't. I have to wait to go over so my sister can ride with me to the funeral. She can't drive herself.

Well, nevermind all that. I just found out in a kind of offhand way that she died quietly in the middle of the night. It was a good way for her to go, she just slipped softly away. I wish I'd found out in a more normal manner, it was a bit shocking.

I think I'll go spend some time with the horses.

Baby steps. This morning Anchor let me scratch the side of his jaw on his left side, and even underneath it a tiny bit. This is the side we worked on so much the other day when getting the ropes off. That foundation work helped. He actually enjoyed having his jaw scratched, as long as I stayed within certain boundaries. He also liked having his mane scratched just behind his poll, but not on his poll.

The other side didn't go nearly as well, but I have to remember we haven't spent as much time there. He craned his neck away from me if I scratched too far forward. Eventually I went back to scratching where I know he likes it and then moved on to his foot - the same foot we worked on yesterday. It only took a few tries, and he picked it up! Barely, and it was kind of like, "I'm going to see if this is what she wants, but I'm going to run too." But it was a definite try, not just a running away, and he only took a few steps away.

So, while they may be baby steps, they're really great progress. It feels good.

Again, I feel like I didn't accomplish much with Anchor today, but really we did make some progress. I rubbed down one leg and repeatedly asked him to lift a foot, but he never did. He did let me rub all over his hoof. Went out later in the heat and it was just no fun. We didn't get anywhere. Mornings are better.

My grandma is in her last hours. She had another stroke and was seeing things, talking to kids in the room who weren't there. Now her body is shutting down. They're keeping her sedated so she's just sleeping. This is what she wants. She signed a do not resuscitate order. The last big stroke she had, she saw the light and thought she was going to meet Jesus and see my grandpa again, and when they brought her back she felt cheated. Knowing she's ready does help, but it's still awful. She was about the most awesome grandma a kid could have. She'd play with my hair, let us eat whatever we want, take care of us when we were sick. She didn't tolerate snakes kept in her garage, however. :)

My sister is really sick with the chemo. She was crying a lot today, really upset that she has to keep doing this. It must be horrible to have to keep going back and sitting there while they pump you full of poison, knowing how sick you're going to be. It's not the throwing up, it's the pain in her body that's bad. Even hydrocodone isn't doing anything for it.

There's something wrong with my dog. I think she might have cancer too. I need to take her to the vet.

So... I'm all happiness and light today... In fact, if there was something wrong with the truck, I might be able to make a country song out of it. Truly though, I am very thankful for the things that are going right in my life. Very, very thankful.

Tomorrow we're having a birthday party, with really tasty cheesecake. My poor daughter, this isn't her best birthday ever. But I'll do my best to make it better. I'm going to take her shopping at the craft store and the mall, and she's the sort of girl who loves the mall. Maybe we'll have lunch together, just us girls.

This is kind of what I felt like yesterday after getting home from our trip:

It was a whirlwind of a trip, and for a moment there I thought I'd have the misfortune of seeing a real big whirlwind, a twister, but I didn't. And we got home in one piece. And now I've seen Oklahoma and Arkansas and can add two states to my list of places I've been.

The above photo is from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. I can say I've been there, but I haven't really. We just went into the lobby and checked out the gift shop. They were about to close. Looked like a place worth visiting though.

Anchor had a week of rest, just being fed and sweet-talked from the fence. I wondered if he'd regress at all but I didn't think he would. He didn't.

Today he went from rope-fettered to utterly naked for the first time in 3 years. I untied his broken halter and cut the rope off his neck. He was a very good boy.

And just look at his handsome profile now:
I was so excited to get this done that I had to take a step away and pull myself together.

Two major goals down - touching and unroping.
Next up - haltering, halter breaking, and hoof work.

For more information on National Wild Horse Adoption Day visit
http://www.nationalwildhorseadoptionday.org/
Go to "Events" and click on "Event Calendar" to find an adoption near you.