WordPlay

Patty Wilber

The northern sky was looming over the ridge in a  thick smoky-black cloud. Still, I took Winston to the round pen to show him to some potential buyers.

Figured we could beat the rain.

Winston–all the horses actually–were high energy and anxious.  Winston couldn’t listen to a thing I told him. He showed his pretty movement but not his willing and quiet self!  The cloud got loomier and the sun was slinking behind the Sandias, so I figured I better attempt to convince Winston to let me catch him.  Normally a quick process, this took a few minutes.  He might not have sold himself on that performance!

A few rain drops were falling.  Headed to the barn and turned Winston out.

Then, the first hunk of golf ball sized hail slammed into the galvanized metal roof.  Loud and solid.  The roof rang with the impact.  There was a pause of quiet, then two hit.  Then five.  Then we were engulfed in a wall of sound; intense and overwhelming.

Dartagnon, here for vet care for an injured and stitched up knee, panicked immediately and began to run.  The hail was pounding him and the shelter was a den of cacophony.  He had no idea where to go, and I could not catch his attention.  The horse that will let me do anything to his injured leg,  a horse that really trusts me, could not see me in his fear; could not hear a word I said.

I wanted him in a stall to protect him, but there was no hope.

Risa was in a pen, alone and without any shelter.  She is edgy even under warm, quiet, normal conditions.  I could see the pain and confusion in her body.  She galloped blindly as the ground conditions deteriorated to muddy ice.

Jim put a board over his head and opened the gate so she could come in, but the noise of the hail on the metal was so incredibly loud that no horses wanted to be near the barn.

Cometa was penned next to Risa, but he had trees and is a very sensible boy.  He was running, upset, but he was thinking,  searching for a solution.

The ground became deeper in hail.  Risa’s pen was sloped and she began to slide and fall…She was looking for some way, any way, out.  She found it: through the 2-strand smooth-wire fence with an electric strand on top.  My heart stopped beating. The electric wire showered yellow sparks as it snapped. A T-post yanked loose and she burst through to Cometa’s pen, dragging fence.

He could not stop the hail for her.

She hurled herself back across the wire, catching a leg.  It yanked her to the ground. The hail was so thick and big that going out was too risky for us thin- skinned humans, and her panic was so great…I could only watch…or turn away…or watch.   And cry.  My chest hurt to see her.

She freed herself and regained her feet only to barrel through the last fence section  still standing.  The remaining electric wire went down with a hot flash.

Dart was still running. Risa was still running.  Cometa was still running.  The barn roof skylight panels were disintegrating over my head.  It was too loud to hear anything but the relentless hammering. Penny and Winston were still running.  The hail was punching holes in the plastic gutters and flying into the barn where the skylights used to be. I was surrounded by chaos, watching animals that depend on me  unable to find help or comfort or safety.

I guess I was glad Dart wasn’t in the stall with the roof falling on his head.  Not sure.

Oddly, the lights never even flickered.

As the hail  drove in harder from the northeast, Penny and Winston came around to the southwest side of the barn and found the most sheltered spot.

Risa found Cometa and they huddled together under the thickest tree, immoblized.  Dart never found a spot to settle.

It lasted, just as Doranna said in her Monday post,  approximately…forever.

When it stopped, all the horses were covered in welts.

Dart was shaking.  His bandage had slipped down and was soaked.

Risa would barely let me touch her.  All four legs were wire burned and cut.  None seemed horrible, but she didn’t want a thorough inspection. She had a gash under her eye and she was trembling. Bute ( a pain killer) and blankets and a slumber party for the two of them.  I had to rebandage Dart.

Cometa just wanted to crawl into my pocket and be hugged.  He stayed like that, a pocket pony, for four days. Penny and Winston shook it off.  Bute and company for those three, too!

My little car was totalled,  paint left the barn for parts unknown, and the entire property looked as though someone used a weed whacker to clear it. Saved on mowing…The electric fence has been re-strung but it refuses to carry a charge. Probably have to put in new wire.

Final insurance adjustments willbe done on Monday.

As far as natural events go, I know this was relatively minor.  All the property damage is repairable.  Risa is the only one with any injuries, and those not terrible.

The part that got me was watching their fear, knowing what could have happened…and having no power to help!

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…

So will FocusWriter, as it turns out.

(Oh, please.  If  Mikey means nothing to you, Google is your friend.)

FocusWriter is a really nifty little program. It’s pretty much the first draft program for which I’ve been looking–simple, straightforward, has enough formatting features to handle a basic fiction manuscript and a few perks for writers.

Notably, those include the statistics and alarms features. It couldn’t be easier to set the alarms from within the program as you start writing, and the stats bar, while a little buggy, keeps track of your file word count AND the percentage completed of the daily goal you’ve set in preferences.  So very easy to check and see where you are–and to obsess, if you want to!

At such things do a daily word-count writer’s heart leap.

The whole screen is dedicated to the prose, and that’s cool, too. If you want to see the menu items and stats, you just mouse over those areas. Plus it’s really easy to set appearance to a theme that’s the easiest on your particular eyes.

Getting the day’s work transferred over to Word Perfect wasn’t quite as straightforward. Tedious, in fact, because it won’t take a cut and paste and maintain the formatting.  (Don’t ask–it doesn’t make sense to me either.)

But all in all, I was having fun with it.

At least, for the first couple of days.  Then came Day Three.

On Day Three, I started my work with the usual File>SaveAs>FILENAME operation, and the program indicated it had done this thing.  And then I did my usual habitual Control-S every several sentences to save the work, and the program told me it was saving each time.

But you know what?  The program lied.

And you know what?

I didn’t find out until I’d closed FocusWriter to begin the tedious process of transferring the work to WordPerfect.

Yah.

Five pages.

Five pages of a transition scene that set up the logistics for the climax of the Work in Progress (Dark Blade), and incorporated the sly exposition that pulled all the plot pieces together.

And you know what?

Yah.  There was crying.

Rewriting such a thing isn’t the least bit simple. I’ve lost work before [delete Aurgh-filled anecdotes]; I’ve rewritten it.  This scene, I knew instantly, wouldn’t be nearly as rewritable as anything else I’ve had to do (and frankly, those were bad enough).  The complex interplay of motivation, personality, exposition, pacing…

Did I mention the crying?

The first time through a scene like this, the characters drive it forward and the muse keeps them on track.  The second time around, I found myself faced with such things as knowing Heroine had said something to Bad Guy that created a critical reaction…and having no idea what she’d said, just that I needed the reaction and I needed to show her character with what she said.

But no, I wasn’t able to brainstorm something new that would serve the same purpose, because the first time through, I hadn’t brainstormed at all. That’s not the way it works.  The characters made it happen.

The second time through, I was happening TO them.

Well, I got the scene done. Partly by giving up certain factors, which I’ll have to try to incorporate elsewhere.  Partly by spending an entire sixteen-hour day writing what had taken two hours the day before.  And partly because deadlines wait for no woman.

FocusWriter is a little open source program, free to the world (although I donate to such things if they prove themselves out).  In a desperate ploy to regain those lost words (I had already done every possible search of the computer innards), I emailed the programmer–who was most gracious, identified the bug, and put it first on the list of his fixes.

Will I try it again at the next update? I don’t know.  I might.  I liked its features.  I might one day trust it after a serious shake-down on something other than my precious Work in Progress.  But since there isn’t any warning on the software page about this newly discovered fatal flaw, consider this my little public service announcement:

Hey FocusWriter!  You ATE IT!

And you probably want more.  So, other writers out there?  At your own risk.

Boy, am I having a good time with The Write Horse today.  Never mind that I’m wishing that had been ME on that cattle round-up!  Such fun to absorb the adventure…

But if you’re a writer–especially one who wants the option of using ranching, the old West, or horses in your work–it’s more than that.  It’s a chance to tap into the all-too-rare horse-n-rider/rider-n-great outdoors gestalt that can be so hard to come by these days.

Soak it up, peoples! Boy, I know I am.  And I’m right HERE!

The DurginBook tidbits of the day? Hidden Steel had a place on the Frugal Kindle this week–yay!  Great resource, and one I have tagged for when I have my own reading device.  And the emergency dental work continues…but is going to take a while.  Did you know that if you rub Tiger Balm into your jaws, your eyes will water for hours?

And yes–!  This weekend it’s off to another agility trial.  Cross your fingers for us!

Oh, I know, I know. Cheerful author blog is this.  Cheerful, perky, personable…

Well, today I’m kinda peeved. And it works for me to say:

Dear Dog Owner from the UNM Campus this Past Weekend:

Here is a clue about responsible dog ownership.

Other people, including dog lovers, have no obligation to adore your dog.  They have no obligation to greet your dog with joy, be jumped on, drooled on, or risk contact with claw or tooth.

And they should never, ever have to worry about whether your dog, as it runs toward them, has anything other than friendly intentions in mind.

Guess what.  Shouting, “Don’t worry, he’s friendly!” doesn’t count (even if you didn’t bother).  Not for a moment.  Because you never know what someone’s background is.  Have they been bitten in the past?  Do they have allergies?  Do they have injuries or weaknesses that will cause them  pain if bumped?  Balance or strength issues that will cause worry and concern at the approach of an unknown dog?

Fortunately, there’s an easy way to avoid all of this. It’s called a LEASH.  And there’s a back-up system for avoiding these issues when in public areas that invite dogs to go off-lead.  That’s called a RECALL.

On the other hand, if someone is infringed on to the point where they have to shout, “Call your dog!  CALL YOUR DOG!” then either your dog doesn’t have a recall or you’re above using it, and in either case if you had deigned to do so (which you didn’t), you would still have failed in your responsibilities as a dog owner.

Because, Dear Dog Owner, it’s your responsibility to use a leash in public areas that require it.  Period.  You are not special.  You don’t get to break that rule because it’s more fun or  more convenient.  So sorry!

Good stewardship means showing the rest of the world that dog lovers take our responsibilities seriously, and that we’re considerate of other people when it comes to our dogs.  Bad stewardship means dogs are allowed in fewer and fewer places.  Hotels charge a higher pet fee.  Parks deny organizations the right to hold dog-oriented activities–rescue fairs, competitions, dog celebration days.  Other people pay the price for the self-indulgent decisions of those like you.

And even if  your dog is off-leash in an area where such activities are welcome, then it’s still your responsibility to keep track of it at all times, and to call it back if it shows undue interest in other people, other fidos, or belongings that ought not to be peed on.  Don’t want to miss out on the scenery?  Use the aforementioned LEASH.

Do I sound like someone who bears deep wounds from the irresponsible few? You would guess right.  You would guess right that I have been attacked; you would guess right that one of my dogs has been brutally attacked a number of times, and that the dogs involved in all of these attacks were uncontrolled and charged over open ground to get us.  You might even guess right that had it not been for my quick-thinking friend this past weekend, I might well have tangled with your loose Doberman, who targeted my ConneryBeagle as he tracked his oblivious way through campus.

And that I’m really mad about it.

So, spread the word.  This is a leash:

And quite a nice leash, too. Perfect for a handsome dog.

And this is the hellahot pepper spray I have used in the past and will use again.

Not much fun for anyone.

Use the first to protect your dog–who bears no fault here–from the second.

Ahem.  We now return to our usual perky, cheerful, author-blog programming.

Brain Bust.

Also known as, too many projects, too little time, and you want me to what, now?

Well, I did. But I think it broke my brain. I think I need a weekend in, um, hey! How about Montana?

One weekend with photos, coming up! Not mine, but hey…I make a living from living not only out loud, but vicariously. This is good for me! I hope you enjoy it, too!

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 Friday Post

Yes! Finally! After three weeks on crate rest, ConneryBeagle is FREE!

Three weeks of subsuming bounciness into expressive eyebrows and wrinkles of woe.

Three weeks of quiet yodeling, sobbing, and the perfection of the mournful howl.

Three weeks of, “Mymom, are we THERE YET?”

The first week he was so heavily drugged it wasn’t a big deal.  Thank goodness, because we were moving with a vengeance that week, and Connery spent his time in whatever crate I could push from place to place.  Lots of yodeling and singing, but…kinda stoned.

The second week, he mourned…in a new place, unable to smell all the KEEN NEW SMELLS, baffled that Corgi packmates Belle and Jean-Luc had free run while he didn’t.  I took him around on a heel so he could smell things and see things, but…mostly he stuck his face up against the crate door and experimented with amazing new Calvin faces against the wire.

The third week, he said he was READY TO GO!  He’d come bouncing out of the crate and grab the nearest toy, flip it fiercely around, and then say, “Oh.  OW.”   I began to give him controlled down-stays in the office so he could be with me sometimes.

And now here we are!  The end of the third week!  He doesn’t get to rush out to instant unfettered glee; this’ll be a slow reintroduction of activity, complicated by the intense series of storms sweeping through the area.  Think slush, mud, slush, and ugh…

But still, ConneryBeagle is FREE!

Well.

To be serious for a moment.

Not free in an emancipation kind of way.  I’m not one of those who will turn a pet into traffic or out to the coyotes because any horrible death is better than slavery–although at shows, I’ve guarded his travel crate against those who would.

And I’m not his “guardian”…I own him.

I also adore him, train him, show him how to find glee in learning and pride in doing well.  I keep him alive against all odds and a tricky autoimmune system that baffles veterinary science, and every year his hot house flower medical expenses are my savings for a new car, broken ribs aside.  But although I call myself a dogmom, that’s about the emotions.  Legally, responsibly, and by all means with every right to decide his fate, I own him.  It is a privilege, and it is a right–and HSUS and PETA would have it differently, but for now, he is mine.

And I, it must be said, am his.

The Monday Post

Really, this has got to be the most Monday ever.

This is our second week of wildly toting stuff between the two dwellings, a two-hour round trip, while hoping that snow doesn’t close the pass between us.

But only a week to go…

This is the first day of the barn-moving process, which should last five days, and which has started just as two horses have moved into Duncan’s neighborhood and put him into a high stallionesque dudgeon (no, he’s not.  But he was gelded very late and he still thinks he is).

Only four days of barn de- and re-construction after this one…

Truth is, we don’t actually know yet when I’ll be switching home bases between the houses–whenever Duncan goes–those logistics are to be decided today.

But in a short while, I won’t have to wonder any longer…

And this is, as it happens, Day Four of the three weeks that Connery Beagle is crate-restricted after his New Year’s Eve adventure in the yard, an over-enthusiastic romp during which his clueless, larger, and brain-injured (no, seriously–at birth) brother slammed him into some unyielding object and broke some ribs.  The wee little last rib and the one above–see them there, up on that little x-ray crop?

(Truth is, the very last rib isn’t visible, but I played with contrast and effects to get rest of it showing well.  They should ALL be nice and curvy-round…not, you know…crumpled).

So, no more walks on the land for the joyful Beagle for a while.

Only seventeen days to go before we can start careful rehab walking.  And we did have our single excellent walk out on the land together on Christmas.

Looks like a life of countdowns, starting with Monday!  Someone, tell me I’ve got company…what other countdowns are going on out there?

PS Countdown to no Internets?  TOTALLY UNKNOWN!
PPS Likelihood of Wednesday/Friday posts this week?  TOTALLY UNKNOWN!