DuncanHorse continues his slow recovery from virus and colic. I continue trying to work on no sleep.
Therefore, this is the blog of the day, and here is the thing for which we have lived since Friday.
Ohhh yeah.
Rejoice!
I had a whole post of Dart’s rally pictures and happy little plans to make happy little chatter about the rally fun match the previous weekend and this past weekend, our first UKI trial starring Dart (Connery is on the bench due to his meds).
Then came last Friday morning, when Duncan Horse woke up sick and got sicker. And sicker. And, even as one of us set up trial gear an hour away, ultimately and obviously too sick for owner management.
So at the moment it looks like he got a virus, which snuck quietly up and then bloomed overnight into dehydration, which caused (not too bad) impaction colic, during which the fever spiked up and complicated the colic recovery. All of which caused much back and forth to the barn–checking the horse, walking the horse, petting the horse, kissing the horse’s nose, medicating the horse, introducing tiny tiny handfuls of food to the horse, blanketing and coddling and…
Okay, so. I didn’t write a blog for today. It would have had cute pictures and happy little chatter, though.
But here is a picture that exemplifies Dart’s frame of mind when we ran down to the trial site on Sunday to grab the gear, and grabbed a few quick runs while we were at it (while Duncan had a baby-sitter). That, of course, is the innards of the toy he stretched his evile prehensile toes out of the crate to acquire and smite. The rest of the stuffing is in the background.
INSERT EVILE CUTE DOG HERE
Yeah. Because that little beard of stuffing belongs there.
I spend a lot of time outside.
Brrr! Now that's outside...
When you add up the bird-watching, the flower-prowling, the agility training, and the horsie back riding…yeah, I spend a lot of time outside, and always have.
I started out working as a park naturalist in Ohio and then headed to the deepest Appalachians (100 acres, log cabin, endless mountain ridges); from there, I had an interlude in the western New York suburbs. I eventually escaped to the rural southwest–first to the amazing world of Flagstaff’s San Francisco Peaks, then to Albuquerque’s unique South Valley, and most recently through the pass to the Tijeras Canyon foothills.
That’s where I am now, and that’s where, barring significant surprise, I’ll stay.
It’s a journey that spans a treasury of different ecosystems, different weather patterns, different critters. It includes the richest riparian forest; chill flat hickory and chokecherry woods; the rarified air of high desert, snow pack, and ponderosa pines; the hot bosque valley of the Rio Grande–and now the windward foothills of another sacred mountain. Totally different flavors of life, and they’ve all become part of me.
All absorbed right through to my writing.
At first I resisted the lure of using my personal worlds in my writing. And at first the resisting was easier–I was creating worlds for my fantasy novels, so I could use what I knew without being (too) obviously referential about it.
But then I started writing more contemporaries. And while I can and have researched the ecological details of Far Distant Places, my own closer places keep wanting to come out. (Most recently, this means a book of luxuriating in the complexity of Sedona, Arizona–from the striking red rocks to the deep canyons. As if I could resist!)
It’s more than just the convenience of it–although the convenience of weaving location through the plot-building process can’t be denied. But it’s because…you know, writing is about sharing what drives you, and about what means something to you. And I don’t just live in these places, I live as part of them, soaking them in…wallowing in them, if I can wax just a little bit poetic. So I love these worlds of mine…and I want readers to love them, too.
Here’s where it gets into nefarious deeper layers. Ulterior motives, even.
Because the things you know and love become things not so easily dismissed. If you know–even vicariously–the scent of the ponderosa pine, the deep green needles, the ridged, red-tinted bark…then when climate change makes them vulnerable to the pine bark beetle, maybe it matters just a little bit. When fire rages through the mountains due to perfect storm conditions created by man’s intervention with natural cleansing fires, then maybe suddenly allocating resources to forest management matters, too.
And if it matters to enough people, then maybe it makes a difference.
One can hope.
So I guess that makes me an environmental proselytizer.
But you know, mainly…it’s because writing where I am is about writing what I am, and what I know and love–and being able to share that so it changes just a little bit of something in someone else. It’s what I want to be able to say about my writing…that on some level, it matters.
Isn’t that what we all want?
first appeared in Terry Odell’s Blog
If you’re on my FaceBook or Twitter feeds, you watched this one unfold. The evening clouds coming in over the mountains weren’t a surprise–we knew about the rain.
When the hail started, that wasn’t a surprise, either. Biggie marble-size hail is common enough around here. It squalls through in pretty short order.
I mean, usually.
This time, there was nothing usual about it–although as golf balls started to spang off glass and we crated the dogs away from the windows, we still thought it would pass.
Because, I mean, usually.
But within moments I was pressed against the leeward office window, watching DuncanHorse hurl himself around a paddock slippery with accumulating inches of hail–scrabbling, falling, and beyond rational equine thought. Talk about feeling helpless…oh, I cried for DuncanHorse!
This lasted for approximately…forever.
(Yes, I’m pretty it was about that long.)
The hail piled up in drifts that would take days to melt, sandblasting the world. When it finally–FINALLY–eased, I went out to comfort Duncan with his blanket (he’s too dignified to call it a blankie, but same effect), and gave him bute and a bonus snack of hay. I won’t say he leaped into my arms upon my arrival, but it was a close thing.
The next days were all about discovering damage: Garbage can, holed; gutter drains, bashed; van, battered (to the tune of $6600), one solar tube cover split. The roof damage is of yet undetermined–the special insurance catastrophe teams are here, but taking weeks to work through the backlog.
Our scrub Oak, scrubbed. The dear little thing does still have a leaf or too...if you look closely.
My lush fall wildflowers turned into food processor fodder; we lost a little yard tree and are crossing our fingers for this year’s other painstaking transplants. The wild juniper/pinon arroyo lands around us were thinned to a veil–neighbors across the valley are suddenly visible. The wild grasses were flattened, the roadside ditches held mini-glaciers of hail flow, and the giant sunflowers canted wildly out of the ground under their own weight.
Our thriving, bushy catnip
Smashed Asters probably ought to be the name of a band
OH. The agility equipment. Battered, shattered, shredded. I saved the table (it’s already repainted) and the A-frame (ditto), but the dogwalk…maybe salvageable, maybe not. Insurance folks check it out this week, along with the teeter, tunnels and broad jump–and the barn, which gurgles mysteriously and has water in its structure somewhere.
Um.
As for DuncanHorse, it took five days before he shook off the soreness and the shock, but he’s back to being his opinionated self and would not care to admit he was ever in need of a blankie and a hug.
All in all, that storm left behind a little slice of damage remarkable for its completeness. No exposed car or household in this little area escaped; no skylight survived. While most of the damage occurred tightly local to us, the storm also hit weirdly northwest of us to wreak havoc at Kewa Pueblo.
However.
In the end, it’s all part of living along the Sandias. If the beauty of these high desert foothills is dramatic, so can be the weather. It’s also part of horsekeeping at home–and of being so drawn to the outdoors that the damage to the trees and flowers and the small creatures who perished now feels so deeply personal.
Tucked in by the house...a wee gaillardia, the lone survivor
Of course, that doesn’t stop us from crying about it, or floundering to fit repairs and recovery into the following weeks, or wandering around in shock at the gut-deep understanding that no matter how well you prepare and provide for your outdoor kids, when nature comes along, it’s not always enough.
Patty at the Write Horse sure knows it, too–Friday gives us the storm from a Risotada Training point of view. But until then, we’re all still just putting things back together.
PS Dear Editor: v. sorry my proofs were pushing that deadline…
Ooh, it’s chilly this morning.
JUST THE WAY I LIKE IT!
And Duncan Horse and I are headed out for a trail ride later today, where we’ll meet up with Patty and one of her many crew and play on some rough parts of the ridge crossing. Not quite as adventuresome as in the Write Horse this work (or, I gather, what’s to come!), but all the same we’ll feel pleased with ourselves, I’m sure.
Plus there is nothing better than settling in to write pages on a cool morning with agility practice behind you and a trail ride yet to come!
Probably there are a whole lot of things you’re happy not to know about flies and their little fly babies.
Oh, I wish was you.
It hasn’t been bad here this year, really–not compared to the valley last year when we lived not only next to a herd of sheep, but the aquecia. In fact, with that historical watering system all around us and flies being so keen on incubating in damp, warm places, I suspect that place was just plain Fly Heaven.
It was not Horse Heaven. Not come July. No talking in the paddock unless you wanted flies in your mouth. Flies bounced off our bodies and worse, into and out of our ears. I went through hundreds of dollars of fly bait, fly spray, and fly masks.
The Height of Horse Fashion. If you read horse nose language you see he is Not Pleased. This is because he believes he should be eating.
I had already done every possible thing with my own yard, but here’s a fun fact about flies–they have a quarter-mile range. Jammed into the valley with its unique urban-rural agriculture, we didn’t have a chance. Not even with my trusty fly predators scattered around on a monthly basis.
*insert fly predator love*
Baby Fly Predators, still sleeping in their shipping package
This year, we’re out in the foothills. No sheep, no aquecias (the arroyos manage our water, and otherwise we xeriscape), and lightly scattered horses. The fly predators had a fighting chance…at least, until a month or so ago.
I ran into trouble because–and here is a little tip about flies–the fly traps have to be placed just right. The right amount of sun, the right amount of heat, and the correct proximity to their favorite hang-outs.
What the human wants is to put the trap–one gallon of stinky fly bait in water–in a place that won’t affect the neighbors or the house, or stand vulnerable to horse investigation.
And they have to be placed that way ahead of the seasonal surge, which around here is triggered by the monsoon.
But here in my new location/climate…I didn’t know what the flies would want. My instinct was that the flies would want to be HERE. And HERE had no protection from Horsie Incursion.
After repeated failures, I gave up and put the trap HERE, surrounded by a little bulwark of juniper logs.
DuncanHorse still gets to it. But not very often.
So now it’s a working system, if too late to prevent the population surge–and complete with that pungent but odd fly bait. Not immediately nasty, just sort of, “Gosh, I wish I hadn’t smelled that.” And then, as you realize how the slightest molecule instantly adheres to your skin and doesn’t let go, “Gee, I REALLY wish I hadn’t smelled that.”
Solution: scrub until the affected skin is gone. Works a charm.
But then there’s later. After a few days…as the flies begin to collect. As they DIEEEEE. Then it’s not just fly bait, it’s rotting flies and fly bait. A gallon jar with four solid inches of dead flies over the world’s nastiest liquid (we can’t call it water any longer). Oh yeah.
But hey! The flies think this is even MORE exciting, so the trap works even better!
Yay!
And then comes the day. The fly trap must be emptied, rinsed, and rebaited.
Han Solo: What an incredible SMELL you’ve discovered!
This is that smell.
And this is when you learn what you really, really, wish you didn’t know about flies:
They’re explosive.
You heard me.
BOOM!
Yes indeed. You gotta dispose of the accumulated mass of flydom JUST SO.
OR ELSE.
While frantically trying to not actually touch it.
Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
And here, I had intended to insert a photo showing amazing masses of potentially explosive flies. However, this afternoon I had an uncharacteristic fit of mercy and good taste, so instead….
Look! Pretties! My first-year gaillardia! California poppies! Sunflowers! (Can’t take credit for those…they plant themselves.)
These annual sunflower plants are about twice as tall as I am...
These gaillardia ought to spread nicely next year, and be good and thick!
Poppies! Poppies! Poppies! I hope these pretty little things come back next year...
…Monday
Or, in Duncan’s case, the call of the modest fenced pasture.
He. Wants. It.
Duncan loves his pasture. Doesn’t matter how scarce those grass blades or how studded with prickly pear. He has a south flat shared with agility equipment and junipers and one gorgeous piñon, a north flat of yucca and prickly pear in which we sometimes ride, and a rugged, offset connection corridor curving around behind the house–the little arroyo, full of piñon, juniper, snags, and cactus.
Beyond that fence line, he can only gaze upon the plunging deep true arroyo, which is really just as well.
The paddock itself is plenty generous–different shade choices, flats and slopes and the barn. Zones for winter hang-out, zones for summer hang-out. Room to cut loose now and then.
Say, when he has a serious case of Pasture Wannit.
Because it doesn’t matter how dry, it doesn’t matter how sparse. He loves his pasture.
Unfortunately for him, although this land is meant to be grazed–by antelope, deer, elk, and bunnies–it isn’t meant for heavy use. It’s meant for animals who wander through, nibbling along the way. So that means while he’s good for this land, he’s also bad for it. (If he wasn’t a barefoot horse, he’d be even worse for it.) And in this dry, pre-monsoon season, that means he has only a few hours out, every other day or so.
This is, he says, not nearly enough. So he has a procedure through which to satisfy his Wannit.
First up: The determined and steely stare over the gate.
DuncanHorse: You. Will. OPEN.
When this fails, a quick circle around to glare with stare part 2:
DuncanHorse: Feel my wrath building! SNORT!
I have to say the gate is seldom impressed. Even the universe seems to have other things to do.
Next? Pawing at the gate. He doesn’t do this for any other reason, and he’s not pawing the ground. He lifts his front leg remarkably high and scrapes his hoove along the metal.
DuncanHorse: Must. Develop. Opposable. Digits.
Sadly, he does not.
And so the fun begins.
DuncanHorse: Wrath! SNORT! FLING MY HEELS! SPURT AWAY WITH AMAZING POWER! STOMP! STAMPEDE! LEVITAAAAATE!
Somewhere in that process, I often amble out to enjoy the show. Somewhere in this process, he becomes bored with himself, but doesn’t want to admit it. There follows a great spate of snort! Snorty snort!
And then suddenly, it’s…
Flirt. Flirt flirt flirt.
DuncanHorse: Am I handsome?
DuncanHorse: See my eyelashes?
DuncanHorse: See my curvy neck?
DuncanHorse: The gate is right there beside you…
Nice try, Duncan. Here’s a hug, a pat, and a cookie.
DuncanHorse: Kiss my nose?
Always!
The Power Snit: That there is the Lippie Engine at work. Also, that is what we call "the Neck of Annoyance."
The Power Snit Sprint upon take-off. Not a great angle, but that is one hard-workin' butt
Proof of the butt: Suddenly--full gallop! In rather tight quarters, you may notice.
"See? See my flirty neck?"
"My super flirty neck! Here I come! Time to kiss my nose!"
…Friday
Every year, it’s the same. The reassuring seasonal patterns of the Big Shed.
In late February, regardless of climate or weather, Duncan dispenses with his outer guard hairs. These are the crisper hairs, the ones that protect best against snow and rain. Horsie Gore-tex.
He sheds ferociously for about ten days, and then that stage is over. And he’s an alpine breed, is Mr. Lipizzan. He’s still got plenty of coat left, if not as much protection from sloppy snow and rain.
We cruise for a while with random light shedding–and then in early April, the undercoat shed starts.
Abruptly.
POOF.
And then?
DO NOT APPLY CHAPSTICK BEFORE BARN TIME.
We spend a lot of quality time together in the spring. The hair comes off first at his neck and shoulder and hips, and then along his topline. The belly and legs are last, and it then weirdly comes off the inside of his gaskins in one fell belated swoop.
By the first of May, he’s still working at it–the finest of hairs remaining, and in certain spots, his summer coat gleaming through. But his silhouette has changed. Not slick yet, but no longer a white teddy bear. The strong bones of his face and legs come through; the arch of his neck catches the eye.
So whew. Here we are, almost done. Stout white pony, 90% uploaded into noble war horse.
Almost, I can visit the barn without “Peh! Phoo! Spit!”
All the same, I do love those hours together. Happy, quiet horse, sending out his pleased and pleasing waves of grooming endorphins.
Peh! Phoo! Spit!
Well. I did say ALMOST.
And this, I have found too late: horse, dog, and human hair is perfect for soaking up oil spills. My dogs have done most of their spring shedding and Duncan, likewise. But if you know someone with a grooming shop…
Meanwhile! Another sign of spring here on the land–pink evening primrose. They’re everywhere, like little carpets of luxury in the high desert. I’m watering this one…I’d like to see it next year, too!
…Friday
Sequel to The Horse in the Cold Wet Dark
We’ve had some…interesting…weather lately, that’s for sure. Enough to try the patience of DuncanHorse, who found himself closed in the paddock and denied his time under saddle.
There have been temper tantrums. Snortysnortysnorty.
So the other night, deep into the darkness while I worked on Secret Project, I heard the first round of snorty and thought, uh-huh.
But then there was the second round, snortysnorty, a sound of deep disgust. And the third. And…
I listened a little harder, because that’s what horse people do when something out of pattern happens in the darkness. Nothing.
All the same, I went out early to feed.
DuncanHorse: About time. Where have you been? Kiss my nose.
Me: Hmm, you look unusually humble.
DuncanHorse: Not at all. I am mighty. Now that you mention it.
*LED headlamp beam hits the barn door, illuminating the deep new scars in the wood*
Me: WTF?
DuncanHorse: Nothing to see here. Move along, move along. Feed me.
Me: Seriously, WTF? These aren’t kick marks, but…and why didn’t I hear this happening?
DuncanHorse: Feed me. Kiss my nose. You see nothing.
Me: This looks like you scraped up with your hooves–Oh, wait a minute. You got cast against the barn, didn’t you?
DuncanHorse: Maybe. Do you love me?
Me: *SMOOOCH the nose.*
And yet, knowing once more just how lucky we were. A horse is “cast” when it finds the perfect spot for a snooze and, in lying down, fails to make the minute calculations for the space necessary to get up. Or it rolls over into a wall, or slips down a hill (as it happens, there’s a significant slope in front of the barn).
*coff* Nature didn’t provide equus with a lot of walls during the whole natural selection process.
Anyway, a horse unable to get up is a horse in trouble. They aren’t made for anything but short naps in the sun; it’s why it’s such a serious thing when an ill or injured horse can’t stand. (The first time the head counselor at the Girl Scout camp where I taught riding saw some of our little herd lying down, she gasped, “They’re dead!”)
A cast horse trying to get up can damage itself severely. Bruises, flailing hooves cutting flesh, abscesses from the strike of hoof against hard surface, and sometimes a twisted gut.
A cast horse unable to get up…well. Duncan weighs a thousand pounds. This puny human can’t exactly tug him into a better position for another try.
So, yes, again we are very lucky, here in our totally weird spring weather (did I mention SNOW? And plenty of it? In May?). Duncan managed to get himself up. He had no cuts, no swellings, no broken bits. He was stiff, but a couple hours in the sunshine made a difference there. And I’m guessing that because he was swiping the barn instead of hammering it, we have a good chance of avoiding a hoof abscess.
The barn is kind of ugly. But the scrapes and dents will weather eventually…and whoever needs an excuse to kiss that horsie nose?
===========
I don’t have pictures of that wintery day. I do have pictures of the day before, when we drove up to Santa Fe, and the development of the storm moving in…if you look closely, you can see what rain looks like from a distance when it’s just beginning to head for the ground.
Yay! Pictures!
Monday…
Valerian Mist, Mountain Mare
Duncan has always had a weird presumption about the ground beneath his feet, which is that it won’t dare to vary without his consent. Let’s just say that unlike my cat-footed young gaited mare in the Appalachians–who occasionally saved my life with her sure-footedness in challenging ground–I don’t make any assumptions of Duncan. And for the past many years, Duncan has been on fairly flat ground. Some slope, but evenly done. The occasional trail ride in a distant cinder cone foothill with narrow switchback trails he had no idea how to handle–
(NO, horse, you do not obsess about flinging one lone fly off your head when navigating a hairpin turn to a narrow down trail on a steep slope!)
He, he assures me, exists for loftier things than watching his feet.
Well, let’s just say he’s learning better.
This winter (mudmudmud), his riding ring was the mile loop of dirt road that climbs up out of the ridge-nestled bowl in which we live, flattens briefly as it curves around, and then strafes down to the cross-road that feeds in from the outer world. It’s not so steep that you instantly go, “Wow, that’s straight up!” But those of us who have biked it or driven it in slick snow have a very good idea of its slope.
So does Duncan, now. Just as he’s had a few forays into the gorgeous nearby trails that wind up and around the ridges here, with their ditches, mini-arroyos, scattered rocks and boulders, and a few places where all those things are combined on short but “gee, I hope my saddle doesn’t slide off his butt/off his neck” inclines.
(Note: yes, one day I WILL dig out those old pictures, Mona Rethia!)
Add in his pasture–a flat north area, a flat south area littered with agility equipment, and the mild arroyo connecting them between–and oh yes. Duncan is learning to respect the ground.
Not without lessons to learn–he has a particular problem with deep, narrow ditches, in which he doesn’t seem to perceive the drop–but a little experience should help with that. Er, I hope.
More than that, the hills are s taking an aging horse whose long-term stifle issues were getting the best of him, and turning him into a horse who knows how to balance himself going up or going down, in all three gaits, with or without rider. The work is building muscle and flexibility…and it’s taken years off his frame in the four months we’ve been here.
DuncanHorse: Nineteen years of Lipizzan, learning to be young again.
Did I say Yay!..?
Up out of the arroyo...
