WordPlay

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…

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...

…Friday

It’s a Write Horse day!  With food for thought!

This week, Patty is posting through the magic that is WordPress scheduling, while she slips away into more high country for more packing, ponying, and just Being There.  I’ve promised to babysit The Write Horse until she gets back, so help!  Make me look good!

Things are on the go here in the office, with–shall we say–converging realities.  MuseWorld vs RealWorld.  Winner to be determined.

Now, so you will not all be in endless suspense (as I’m sure is the case), I’ll mention that my hay source did this week provide me with pretty green grass hay, and I am once again “rich” in horsekeeping terms.  Hay through to late fall, right there in my barn!

(And, maybe I should also mention–there’s one more day in that FaceBook contest, where signing up for a chance to win means “liking” my FaceBook author page and waving to me in the comments.)

(Also, I should add, I really don’t get that “like” nomenclature.  What are we all, in grade school?  I pretend it says, “Subscribe.”)

I think you will find Patty’s thoughts much more profound…

…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
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!

posted on Monday

Okay, maybe we can’t blame this entirely on Nature. There is, after all, a barn involved.

A barn that was snugged up against trees, and then which seems to have shifted slightly over the winter. End result? There’s this one stumpy piece of this one branch of this one pinon tree that’s jutted up under the sheet metal roof.

There, it waits for the wind to come from a certain direction, and it commences to SKREE SKREE SKREE SKREE.

If Duncan doesn’t go insane from long-term exposure, I will. At least it’s behind the hay stall and not in his very ears.

Plus, you know…it’s not good for the barn and all that.

The problem is…in order to reach this one piece of this one branch of this one tree, I have to climb, hatchet and saw in hand. Not far, because it’s not the sort of tree you can truly climb at all–just a gnarly clump of juniper and pinon, hard to squeeze into, some of which have trunks that are slightly off true and you can kind of…levitate there.

If you’re careful.

And then the offending branch is still over my head.

Remember my previous post about the hatchet? About how you let the weight of the thing do the work for you?

That doesn’t work so much when the target is OVERHEAD.

Also, wood chips fall in your eyes.

So I’ve gotten out the old tree saw (also older than I am, and in dire need of sharpening) and have a new procedure…a moment of sawing. A moment of chopping. Come back tomorrow.

This could take a while.

But you know, that’s okay. Because if there’s one thing I learned in the process of becoming a writer, it was persistence. Or maybe it’s the other way around…it was persistence that got me here.

Five pages a day. Day after day after day. It adds up to books. Over thirty of them at this point, and if you count the ones I wrote before I was even trying to get published…

So. Half an inch after half an inch after…

And hey! Look what persistence has done with the juniper nursery!

posted on Wednesday

I love my new barn.

I especially love my new barn on nights when I’m settling down to sleep and I suddenly think the dreaded thought:

Did I close the hay stall door?

And then I pad through the darkness to the office, flip on the back light, peer through the window, and say, “Why, yes, I did. Go, me!”

This is such and improvement on get dressed, put on shoes, gear up for weather, head out several layers of doors and the yard gate, and walk around to where I can see the front of the barn.

It really is.

It’s actually not a new barn so much as it is a nearly new barn, constructed just over a year ago upon the move from Arizona to New Mexico, and then recently relocated here. And boy, was it painstakingly positioned–exactly so I can look out that window for exactly that reason. Well…and to check on the horsie, too.

So, you ask…what’s this about manure landscaping?

“Run-off from the yard has to drain away from the barn,” I said as the site was under construction. Really. I said it many times. I’m pretty sure a note of desperation entered my voice. Why, I might even have gotten a little…testy. The response was always, “It’s not done yet, it’ll be fine when it’s done.”

Problem is, I guess, I never did stamp my foot. Because then one day it was done, and…well.

Water runs directly at the barn. Laser targeting. Distinct downhill.

El Nino winter? The hay stall floods. The horse stall is mud. The area in front of the stall door is…

One of these days someone is going to come looking for me and find nothing but a feebly waving hand sticking up from the mud.

The stall floor is now lined with double-layered stall mats, and that’s helped a lot. Just outside the stall entry? I’m stumped. And after the snow-rain of the past couple days, I’m desperate! The ground is half frozen, half mud, and I don’t want to disturb the wood shredding-covered ground where it’s still stable. So what do I have to work with?

Right.

Horse poo.

And so I’m trenching; I’m building high ground. I’m directing the water as I can, with the materials at hand.

Yes, it is I.

The Happy Poo Farmer.

*DELETE PICTURE OF INDELICATE POO FARM*

*INSERT PLEASANT PASTORAL VIEW FROM DRYISH DAY*

The Monday Post

And the rain turned to heavy snow…

What was I saying about horses in the wet cold dark? About the stupid?

Well, there’s the flip side of the coin. When the horse has to deal with Human Stoopids in the wet cold dark.

There’s a truth with horses–surround them with bubble wrap, and they’ll still find a way to hurt themselves. Just imagine what goes on when there’s a real excuse for it…

This weather has been hard on my getting-older boy–his flank is still tender from the fall he took on ice earlier in the week, and he felt that night of getting wet down to his bones. But the next bit wasn’t his fault, not at all.

His paddock is on an area that’s newly graded, you see–or half of it, anyway. A bit of construction overlap. “But safe for a horse, right?” I asked.

“Oh, yes. No problem.”

As muddy as it gets, it turns out–not what I was expecting, after my time in Flagstaff’s high desert. Though the guys were expecting it, and wood shavings have taken care of much of the mud immediately in front of the barn.

Turns out the mud wasn’t the problem. But that human factor…

All that grading. All that rain. All that ground settling beneath a frozen crust of mud.

Oh yes.  Problem.

And yes, we’re talking a sinkhole.

A sinkhole which one stout Lippie hind leg plunged through to the hock while the other–that’s the one with the totally funky, reconstructed stifle–scrambled to keep the first leg from breaking, front hooves slamming down on the frozen mud and halfway through the extended air pocket stretching out before him. All that struggle, written in the mud to freeze and read, and painted all over his white coat.

Well, he didn’t break his leg. I’m not sure how. But the horse who greeted me in front of the stall the next morning was one hurtin’ boy. He gave me that look. You know. “Please fix this.”

Of course I found the sink hole. And I found the air pocket extending radically beyond what he’d gone through, so I left him in his stall eating breakfast to hunt down the bute (horsie anti-inflammatories) and to call the construction guys to bellow for help. Bless them, they hustled out there fast.

In this mud, the best we could do is put up a little square of corral panels to block it off–it’ll be a while before it’s fixed. Especially given the weather we’ve had since then and are slated to have this coming week–snow ‘n’ blow.

Meanwhile, Duncan has had his bute and is feeling much better overall.  Although, as it happens, the spate of weather has finally driven him indoors. He’s been wearing his waterproof/wind proof sheet most of this time, but he’s finally hanging out in his stall.

In fact, in that photo up top? Yup, he’s in there. In the horse cave. Waiting for hay, carrots, and nose-kisses…

And forgiving the human stoopids.

Aren’t animals just like that?

The Wednesday Post

Duncan wouldn’t want me to give away his little secret, but it’s true.

Take an ordinarily clever–nay (if  I may pun)–stupendously intelligent horse, and give him a nice dry barn.   Even a modest little shedrow barn.   (I still haven’t found my camera.  Instead of the barn, here’s a piccie of summer Duncan sticking his tongue out at my entire subject matter.)

So far so good, right?

Okay, now add a brisk winter breeze.  Then add the coldest slushy rain you can imagine.  Let that start coming down around dark.

Remember.  Smart horse.  Dry barn.

But NO.

When the human comes outside at midnight for the last check and feeding, there’s the horse.

Always, there’s the horse.

By the fence.

Wet.

Cold.

Miserable.

VERY SORRY FOR SELF.

In this case, wet right through the thick winter coat that can slough off just about anything.  Annoyed enough to have thrown some MAD around the paddock and slipped in the process–one learns to read the signs of such things–and now sporting a bloody patch on one hip.  Mystery blood.  There’s no tracking it down at midnight in the wet cold dark.

So then you have the human, tromping back up to the house to find the waterproof, windproof horsie sheet.  Getting out some extra hay pellets as a treat.  Tromping to and fro in the wet slushy snow to tend the horsie who stood out in the rain.

By the fence.

Wet.

Cold.

Sore.

NOT SMART AT ALL.

It’s not without its rewards.  This particular horse is from a significantly self-aware breed–Lipizzans are like that–and he had a palpable sense of awareness of his miserable state.  Cold and tense and unhappy.  But he saw me bring out the blanket and he knew.  “You are going to make it better.”  His entire demeanor changed; his tension flowed away.  He put his head out for the blanket (I’m lazy, I put it over his head); he went to his stall and commenced to grinding away at the soaking Lakin hay pellets.  He stood like a rock while I fumbled around with blanket fastenings and belly band in the wet cold dark.  “I am content,” he said, presenting his Lakin-green lips and muzzle to me along with his soaking muddied-up face.  “Kiss my nose.”

“Maybe tomorrow,” I told him, and gave him a pat.

Because, really, don’t you think wet cold dark GREEN would be going one step too far?

ConneryBeagle Crate Countdown: ONE DAY!

It just came time to move the feed barrels out of the barn, yes it did.

Due to certain logistics of the property, the barn set-up has always been untenable. Every possible factor added up to the certainty that the hay stall would, at some point, be left open. “Come inside, Duncan Horse, and eat up all the goodies you can find!”

Duncan eats hay, hay pellets, and beet pulp pellets–there’s no rich grain hanging around.  Plus he’s not one of those horses who gorges; even free-fed, he eats modestly and then stands there humming.  So the risk factor has always been pretty low, even if the door just plain got left open permanently.

Except.

This past summer, Duncan colicked badly in the unusual heat; the first vet who saw him labeled him Dead Horse Walking.  I’m so glad that vet was wrong!  But it means Duncan is now forever a horse of Colic Potential.  The benign pellets are now, in their way, a threat.

That meant all my existing barn security routines ramped up to DefCon Colic levels, including a lot of stress–because the barn is completely obscured from view until one is upon it, and facing directly away from the house at that; there’s no way to casually check its status.  Nonetheless, DefCon Colic measures all worked, so far as everything stayed routine.

But now the barn area is slowly being disassembled for moving, and routines are blown away.  And yesterday…

Well, he wasn’t in there very long.

So today I faced off against the two big garbage barrels full of pellets (150 pounds when full…these weren’t quite).  Twenty yards of hauling made it pretty clear I wasn’t going to make it to the house with them.  But desperation is indeed the mother of invention, so you may now amuse yourself with the mental image of me grabbing up the old rope that the property’s previous occupants had left buried in the ground (some of it is still there, too deep to get out) and hitching myself up like a sled dog.

Mush!

Hey, the pellets are safe.  My horsie is safe.  And for the first time in a year, I don’t have to wake up in the middle of the night and wonder, “Did I close that hay stall door–?” without having any way to check besides suiting up and going out into the cold.

Now, someone please tell me I’m not the only one to beat myself against the “Did I remember to [insert crucial task]” meme this way!