01/31/12

Here’s the latest, the greatest, the newsiest news!

The Fitzhenry & Whiteside Writer Beware generated by the  Dun Lady’s Jess reversion situation is quieter, but actively ongoing.  Some things take time…

Here in the office, TIGER BOUND, the fourth Nocturne Sentinels book, is in production–and so is the reprint of NOSE FOR TROUBLE, which means I’m working on the cover even now!  KODIAK CHAINED is in first draft and zooooming along quite nicely!  And the steamy new paranormal novella, Touched By Fire, is now available.

And…

• My out-of-print backlist is at Backlist eBooks — with more to come!
• Night of the Tiger was a December release (Nocturne Bite).
• The release schedule for the four outstanding Nocturnes is: Tiger Bound 08/12; Kodiak Chained  12/12; Demon Blade 2013; Dark Blade 2013.
• ConneryBeagle’s medical fundraiser goes on, and his updates are at the anthology pages!
• You can subscribe to WordPlay by Email

I’ve finally figured out the big secret to feeding Duncan.

It wasn’t any single discovery…it was sixteen years of observations coming together at year twenty.

The particulars:

1. Like most Lipizzans, Duncan is an air fern.
2. At random intervals, Duncan has the worst diarrhea ever.  White horse, beautiful long tail…a power scrubber would take days to undo the mess that results.
3. Times 5 if he has a blanket on; blanketing clearly contributed, though who knows how.
4. At other times, he’s far too dry.
5. Those other times have contributed (but not caused) both of his colics–the one he survived only by a miracle, 2 1/2 years ago, and the one a year ago that we caught early and was precipitated by a nasty virus that weakened him for months.
6. None of that happened when he was in Flagstaff on Bermuda hay, which is an unusual kind of high-protein grass that I can’t easily get here.

In the meantime, after the first colic, I started soaking his hay a few moments before he ate.  I didn’t soak it longer, because I had read that the hay loses nutrients in that case.

About six weeks ago, I read (in the online source The Horse), an report on a scientifically conducted hay-soaking study.  And it turns out that lengthy hay soaking doesn’t reduce the nutrients per se.  It reduces the sugar.

So, sez I upon reading this study–great!  I must try longer soaks, because I don’t care if my air fern gets less sugar and the grass will soak up more water.

Now, one of the things that changes pretty significantly between hay cuttings and even hay bales is the amount of sugar in the grass.  Environmental circumstances during grass growth, how long it lays after cutting…blah blah blah.  There’s no easy way to predict it, and you sure can’t tell by looking.  And if my air fern were off grazing as horses evolved to graze, he wouldn’t be facing these abrupt dietary changes.  He’s not a digestive hothouse flower so much as he is displeased with the changes man has wrought to his manner of eating.

Do you see this coming?  He hasn’t had a digestive upset since I started doing soaking the hay.

Not that they came so often that it was obvious at first.  But a siege of bad weather and blanketing drove the point home.  And not that it’s easy.  It means an elaborate set-up in the garage, hay strewn where we don’t want it, and–wuh–hauling nets of soaked hay down to the barn.  But we’ve gotten it down to a pretty good science at this point, and after all these weeks, I am still smug–SMUG, I tell you!–to have stumbled over the food management that overcomes issues old and new.

So we’ll continue to refine the soaking routine, and I’ll probably feel smug for a good long while, and meanwhile, just for fun, here are some Photos of AWWWness.

I was going to 'shop out Connery's evil glowing eye, but decided...nahhhh...

For those of you who wondered about Dart's outfit for the Weather on TD test day...

A sunset and crescent moon in the same pic. Can't see the moon? Clickie the piccie...

My glamorous life.

I am author, web master, Backlist eBooks partner, and…the Mighty Poo Wrangler.

(Don’t you wish you were me?)

At times, this is more obvious than others.  Like when the north slope in front of the barn is frozen for ever and ever in the wake of substantial snow, creating a weird glacier with artfully incorporated horse poo.  It was 4F last night–not unusual for deep winter–and it doesn’t get warm enough, long enough, to melt any of it.  That means…yes.  It goes through subtle warming-freezing cycles that compact and entrench it.

The snow is now slick ice; the poo will be there for archeologists to find centuries from now.  “We must surmise that the occupant of this home worshiped Poo, to have preserved it so well.”

In the meantime, daily feeding excursions to the barn are a bit challenging.  Time to get crampons.

The other time Poo Wrangling duties inch into that “Really?  HOW much clean-up and laundry?” zone is when the dogs pass a bug around between them.  Like this past week and a half.  In this case a weird little bug, with atypical incubation, atypical presentation, atypical course of illness. Mainly I spent the time going, “What?  AGAIN?  And you, too?  NOW?  Really?”

Now that I have the whole picture and have been able to pick the brains of some doggy experts (Brain Wrangling, a whole different skill), it’s obvious I was outwitted from the start.  Virus Win, Durgin Stress Shed, and cleaning product manufacturers rejoice.

It’s at times like this I think, “How many dogs do I have?  Why is that again?”

But of course, they’re quick to remind me.  They wait until I’m off guard and then they arrange to blindside me with adorableness, thusly:

Dart & Connery Ball of Cuteness

Dart & Connery Ball of Even Cuter

If you’ve got critters, I bet you know just what I mean!

By the way, there’s free fun for the next week, more or less--the short story A BITCH IN TIME is a freebie at Nook, Sony, and iTunes, but only until the stores pick up the directive to stick it back to 99c.  That should happen fairly soon–I think!–so grab it while you can!  If you have THE HEART OF DOG, you already have this story.  If not…have fun!

Dart & Connery Ball of Even Cuter

DuncanHorse is not going to appreciate this blog.

Duncan: Litterbox!  I heard that!

When I moved here, I had a mighty geology/climate lesson.  Because when I lived in Flagstaff at 7,ooo feet, I was on caliche ground and natural volcanic cinder.  We got a ton of snow (many feets of it!), but rarely did we see mud.  At that altitude, under that sun, the snow sublimated before it melted.  And when it did melt, it ran off the hard ground in sheets.  Only in a few select places did it create squishy spots.

So as I prepared to move to new high foothills, here on the windward side of the Sandias in New Mexico, I planned my horsekeeping accordingly.

Duncan:  Me.  It is all about me.  And that is as it should be.

Wow.  No caliche here.  No indeed.  What we have here is adobe mud.  And there’s a reason people made houses from this stuff.  It will suck the shoes off your feet, send you sliding away on the slightest slope, and swallow you up to your knees.  It will especially do this if new construction has disturbed the soil.

Duncan:  What an incredible mess you’ve discovered.

Right.  So says the horse who happily rolls in said mud and then makes faces at me when it dries to concrete in his mane.  (And who also seems to be a fan of the original Star Wars movie.  Imagine.)

We made this discovery shortly before we moved in.  In a panic, we bought several loads of coarse wood shreddings from the local transfer station and had them spread–in the back yard where the dogs would have otherwise disappeared until spring, and in the paddock directly in the immediate barn area. The shredding packed down, created a mud buffer, and also did a stupendous job of sponging up all but the most profound application of monsoon rain.  (Not that we’ve had much of that in the past year, it is grim to say.)

The side paddock remained naked, although in the time since, we’ve tossed some token shreddings along the fence to make better footing for the pacing zone.

Duncan: The pacing zone is important.  Speaking of which, feed me now.

But the shreddings take a beating over time--they drift away, and they’ve been under hard use in a year when Duncan had no pasture time due to the drought.

Duncan: I would much rather be on my PASTURE!

A couple of weeks ago, we got another load of shreddings.  And I commenced to haul and spread and haul and spread and owwwwww.  Ow.  Ow.  Give me ibuprofen!

This is about a third of the original pile, which spread out into the driveway.

So this past week, we hired a strong back to help, and he hauled and I spread, and…

Lo.  The entire paddock is full of thickly layered shreddings.

And when it was done, I stood in the middle and surveyed Duncan’s domain, and realized what I’d done.

Yes.  It’s a giant litterbox.

Duncan: It is NOT.  Feed me.

The giant litterbox, with winter-hairy horse and the Feed Me Foot in action

Yeeeeah…

It kinda is.

Duncan:  Kiss my nose anyway.

Heh heh heh.  Are you ready for winter?

Here, we have a small stockpile of shreddings (recycled landscaping and construction), and Duncan’s paddock needs grooming for winter.

We did this last fall, too, but that application of shreddings has “matured.” In the side paddock, that means there remains a light scattering of shreddings which have helped anchor the daily application of  scattered horse poo, resulting in a light layer of fairly loose top soil over the rock-hard ground.

(Tip: to improve any soil or footing, mix in horse poo.)

In the barn area, the shreddings were applied 4-6 inches deep, and have mostly compacted into a spongy layer that absorbs water and buffers the natural footing. There are still loose shreddings kicking around on top, but the main improvement is that spongy layer.

This ground-grooming activity is all critical, because the natural soil in this area is adobe clay. In the summer, this is rock hard stuff, and every single time you strike it with a shovel you think, “I can’t believe this stuff!”

If it’s wet, it’s the squishieset, sploogiest, clingiest mud-cement you have ever encountered and, as you go skidding across the ground, usually leaving at least one shoe behind, you think, “I can’t believe this stuff!

Of course, in a natural setting, it’s got a cover of tufty grasses and other high prairie-foothill transition growth. But if there’s just been a house constructed, and the bulldozer has been busy, busy, busy….

Well, our entire back yard is covered with these shreddings, which is why the dogs don’t turn into cement mudballs when we do get rain (oh please, may we have some more of that?). So is much of the front area, so we don’t get mired when going to and fro.

But Duncan’s paddock is a special case, and the shreddings are even more critical–because horses churn up mud with astonishing speed.

Also because although when I staked out the barn flat, it wasn’t a direct downhill from the house–but after the construction crew finished prepping the house foundation, it suddenly became THE collecting basin for run-off.

(Yes, I squawked. Yes, I was given the old dismissive “it won’t be a problem” treatment. Yes, I was right.)

Anyway, that area needs constant maintenance to prevent problems large and small. I’ve done some water-scaping, and that’s helped, but mainly it’s that healthy, thick layer of ever-compacting shreddings that prevents the barn from flooding during a hard rain or snow run-off.

One…

Wheelbarrow…

at…

a time.

Pass the ibuprofen, please?

(Are you ready for winter?  Mwah ha ha!)

How innocent it looks...

Last winter, we had a week of astonishing temperatures, including a couple of nights in the -25 to -30*F zones.

(Don’t talk to me about “You think that’s bad, we do that every year–!”  Because we don’t, and that means we aren’t set up to handle it, and I will be CRANKY about it.)

During that time, the barn hydrant froze up.  I monitored our water meter as it thawed out, found no leaking, and figured we got lucky.

What was I thinking?

So yesterday morning, Duncan got a little “it’s too hot to ride” longe, and I did barn chores.  At which time I either inadvertently became bionic so my sudden surge of strength overwhelmed a barn spigot in perfect condition, OR…

The freeze-weakened join of metal-to-PVC at the bottom of the hydrant gave way without a lot of encouragement.

Let’s just say if I inadvertently became bionic, it was an extremely temporary condition.

The only sign at the barn was a slight sound whining up through the spigot, but the water meter indicated a loss of a gallon a minute.  In the desert.  In the worst recorded drought…ever.

And there is no way to shut off water to the barn without shutting it off to the house.  (Don’t talk to me about this, either.  It wasn’t my doing, and we hope to change it.)

[insert panic, chaos, and massive flurry of activity here]

Well, here are the good things.  Plumber and his Assistant are totally awesome, for starters.  What you see here is a picture of the repaired spigot, (Sunday double-time!), and with a much more robust installation at that vulnerable elbow joint.  Not only that, where the spigot used to point out toward that juniper in the background, it now points back to the trough, which will make my life easier in general, and a whole lot easier come winter, and means the installation isn’t as sticky-outie when it comes to Stupid Horse Moments.

Meanwhile, anyone who was expecting to hear from me yesterday?  Well, now you know where I was…

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.

By Patty Wilber

The vet visit where Tabooli lost his parts also included Tooth Work.  Turns out horses need dental work!

Horses were designed to spend as much as 80% of their time grazing.  As they chew, they grind in an ellipical pattern that wears down their teeth.  In order to keep from having little nubs in their mouths at a tender age, their teeth grow 2-3 mm/ year.

In a perfect setting, the wear due to the grinding would be equivalent to the growth rate, and the teeth would align so well that the grinding surfaces would wear evenly.

Most modern horses do not graze for 80% of the day and many horses do not have the perfect dental bite, which eventually results in sharp and uneven tooth edges.  These  can lacerate the cheeks in more extreme situations, and decrease the efficiency of food utilization in any case. 

So, what to do? Get the dentist,  to float the teeth. Yep FLOAT!

Etymological Note: Directly related to the verb “to float,” meaning “to file the teeth of a horse.” The Oxford English Dictionary includes a single 1886 citation supporting this specific sense of the verb, but the more general meaning, “to render smooth or level,” is dated to at least as early as 1703. Another specific sense, “to level (the surface of plaster) with a ‘float,’” does tentatively support a connection between the horse “float” and the plaster “float,” as mentioned in the 1982 citation.”

 

In addition, I wanted the vet to check for “wolf teeth” and “caps” in Tabooli and Buckshot. 

 

A wolf tooth is shown in the image above.  The reason to have the wolf teeth checked and removed is that they can interfere with the bit  which can be painful and slow down training.

 

A cap is a remnant of a baby molar that hasn’t yet fallen out even though the permanent tooth has started to grow in.  Sometimes, if they are loose, the vet can pop them off during the floating procedure.

 

Buckshot is three and Tabooli is four (well until Jan 1).  Neither has had dental work before, and even though some would recommend a check every six months starting at one, I usually have wolf teeth pulled at the start of training (2 or 2.5) and have the first floating done about once a year starting at three or four.

In order to do the dental work, it is easiest on the horse, the handler and the vet, to sedate the horse.

T with Richard, the vet tech.  This stall was a good place to do the dental work because it is easier to see in the horse’s mouth in a shaded area.

 

Buckshot with Dr.s Jessica March (vest) and Erin Ruminski (purple).  He has a speculum in his mouth, and is feeling a little relaxed.

 

 

 The speculum is opened, and Buckshot’s world is just a little off kilter.

 

Dr. Ruminski  has the grinding tool used to smooth the rough edges of the molars.  Buckshot’s head is resting on a brace and Dr. Marsh is stablizing him.

 

All done.  Still resting on the brace. Bleh!

Buckshot had two wolf teeth removed and one cap.  He also had some floating done.  He got 3 days off to recover from the wolf teeth removal.

T just ended up needing some evening out of his molars because he did have a few sharp edges. He did not have any wolf teeth and he had already lost all his caps.  Of course, once T had his teeth done, he had the “pleasure “of being castrated.  (And he is recovering well.)

Happy New Year!

By Patty Wilber   

Winston update: I sold him to Ruth!    

Ruth met Winston right before the hail storm when he was a bit (OK, a lot) on edge, watched him during the pelting, which he weathered (a pun for you Richard) well, and then came last weekend to ride him.    

Oh happiness.  Oh sadness.  I sold my midlife crisis, (but I am not over it yet!)   

Back to Blankets.   

In the summer, horses are sleek.  The sun arcs off their coats in bright arrows.  Their muscles ripple under their glistening fur. You know!  They look good.   

In the fall, they start to hair up, and on cold nights (or cold days), their fur will puff up like a down coat, providing excellent insulation.  Dry horses, out of the wind, with a good winter coat and adequate feed can withstand very cold conditions  (-30 to -40 F), according to Heather Scott Thomas.   

So, why blanket?   

To help a wet horse.  If a horse gets wet, and begins to shiver,  adding a blanket can  provide wind protection as well as insulation (since a wet coat is not terribly insulative).  This would be a temporary blanketing like we did for Risa and Dart after the hail storm.   

Vanity.  Around here, a horse will be fully shed out by mid April/ early May, but my show season starts…drum roll…Jan 2.  Sleek horses look better in the show ring than dull ones!    

 A blanket can help a horse look better because a) it reduces hair growth, b) it speeds up the rate of shedding; c) the horse stays cleaner; d) the nylon-lined blankets polish the hair so the coat looks shiny.  

 Penny won’t actually be blanketed until January, because the “point” shows (where you can accumulate points toward a year-end prize) don’t start until April.   

Heavy blanket. Purple is Penny's "main" color. (This photo is from March. It is bone dry here right now)

 Penny is always turned out (i.e. she doesn’t live in a stall–she is on 1/2 and acre with Risa and Dartagnon right now) so that means she will need something rugged as well as  wind and waterproof.    

Rugged because horses in pasture mess with each other. (Turns out dental floss works pretty well to sew rents in the the heavy duty type).  Wind and waterproof kind of speak for themselves. 

And since blankets can get really dirty or wet or frozen on the edges, I have spares.  That way I can take the frozen to the basement for thawing or the encrusted to the car wash for cleaning  The high pressure spray (NO SOAP!) is pretty effective.   

Back-up blanket. March 2010 picture

 In Spring, we switch to fly sheets and fly masks.  These are mesh sheets that keep off, yes, flies!  Also, they have a tail flap which keeps Penny from rubbing the hair off the top of her tail.  (Rubbed tails are not so attractive.)  Risa has some white in places under her tail, that I want to protect from the sun, so she wears a summer sheet, too.   

Penny trying on a new winter blanket while Risa models the latest in summer fashion.

 I bought fly sheets in 2010 from Schneider’s, based in large part on the customer reviews that said they would not fall apart (they were right!).  In 2009, I went through three fly sheets, one of which was a lovely soft sheet that was torn within five minutes of its first wear. Fifty bucks down the drain.  Annoying!   

The last kind of blanket I use is a “show sheet”.  This is an unlined nylon sheet that we put on a horse after its bubble bath, prior to a show.  I usually have the  horse also wear a “sleezy” over the head and shoulders to help keep the neck clean over night and tame the mane (make it lie down properly and look kempt). Penny has a purple (I bet you were suprised it was purple!) show sheet  with a black sleezy, so she looks pretty spiffy when we arrive at a show!   

(Turns out I didn’t have any photos of Penny in her show clothes, so you’ll have to click the clicky things to see a show sheet and a sleezy) 

Note that the product description for the sleezy is “slicker hood” but I searched the site using the key word “sleezy” and the “hoods” came right up.   

All this talk of showing has me itching to sit down and get my 2011 show season game plan in order.  All I know so far is this:  Risa will be shown in All Breed (any horse of any breed) reining and working cow at the New Mexico Bucksksin Horse shows.  I am considering ranch sorting, and will  continue to pack with the Back Country Horsemen!  Penny’s plan is not yet formulated–but may include hunter hack (jumping) and some cow work…. 

Summer can’t get here soon enough, and I can already see it is going to need to be longer!!

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…