Spring hopes...eternal

Seems like everyone I speak to is anxiously awaiting the arrival of spring. This winter has seemed particularly harsh everywhere, though I’m not getting much sympathy for dealing with the bitter cold here since the sun is always shining and the skies are New Mexico blue no matter what the temperature. But I saw a fly on a fresh pile of horse manure yesterday, the jackrabbits have emerged and are driving Smooch into a frenzy, and the boys seem to be appreciating the longer days and the extra time I’m able to spend outside with them. Won’t be too long before I have new adventures in the saddle to write about instead of more adventures with power tools.

Alan and George love to play king of the hill. It’s not much of a hill, though, just a mound of dirt that got piled up when the house site was leveled.

Alan is featured today on the daily horse picture contest at equusite.com . He’s such a star. Click on Today's Pictures once you get there to vote for him.

Smooch Winter

The weekend was a whirlwind of indoor projects, due to the whirlwinds outside that mark the coming of spring in New Mexico. We have four seasons here: summer, fall, winter and wind. There’s no point trying to ride horses when it’s like this; the wind hampers their ability to hear the sounds of predators – real or imagined – so they are skittish and can be dangerous to be around, as they might spook at the slightest provocation. The burros seem to take the winds in stride, but if one of the horses spooks, a chain reaction takes place and everyone takes off, running away from the imagined prey.

So I stayed inside, mounting the tv to the living room wall, which set off my own chain reaction: rebuilding an end table to hold the tv components, moving the old tv cabinet into the guest room without killing myself (heaven forbid I should call the neighbor and ask for help), rearranging the furniture all over the house, while vacuuming and dusting along the way. Sometimes I need supervision, if for no other reason than to tell me, “STOP!”

I did sit down to watch the Oscars and learned from Jon Stewart how to come up with my stripper name – take your pet’s name and the name of the street where you lived growing up...Smooch Winter? Wynonna Winter? Rosebud Winter? Daffodil Winter? I think I’ll go with Smooch Winter.

Smooch supervised the weekend’s baking activities...applesauce-peanut butter dog biscuits.

Buck is back...

...and the boys are a little troubled. Alan and George hung uncharacteristically close to the barn all day yesterday, and I suspected something was up. They seemed more playful than usual, perhaps out of boredom, since typically they spend their days wandering all over the ranch. This morning, the cause of their concern made himself known.

Hank put on his brave face and led his herd to get a closer look. I grabbed the camera and walked outside to watch the herd watch Buck. Since all pronghorn bucks look the same to me, who knows whether this Buck is the same Buck who hung out here last spring. But it was nice to see Hank, Alan and George joining up to face the stranger together and acting like a real herd – that was a first. Lyle, being Lyle, hung back to try to eat my camera.

the new demographic

Bad enough to be lumped into the “white women over 50” demographic, but then to find out that this group is Hillary Clinton’s base of support... I’m not playing. Maybe the “white women who deny they’re getting older” demographic will let me join their team.

How I spent my Saturday

Hank is back to normal...whew. And since I didn't have to spend my day running out to check on him every half hour, I tackled a little home improvement project - a cornice for the living room window. This is the first project I have EVER done where: I had all the supplies and tools I needed - no emergency runs to the hardware store; I didn't make any mistakes measuring or cutting or assembling; I never whacked a finger with the hammer - not even once; and everything worked exactly as planned. This will never happen again, so I am savoring the moment. I had never used a circular saw to make mitered edges, nor had I ever used a jigsaw. But today, I mastered both. Am I proud of myself? You betcha!

From mystery lameness to mystery illness

This week, it's Hank's turn to be not right. Yesterday morning, I noticed him standing in front of his favorite tree at the wrong time...30 minutes into the breakfast hour, when I knew there was still plenty to eat back at his feed tub. Sure enough, he had "gone off his feed," as we say.

I went into "vet mode" and shuffled Lyle and the burros around so that I could isolate Hank in the pen closest to the house to keep an eye on him. Now into the 36th hour, I have been on the phone with the vet four times, checked Hank's temperature nine times, given him two injections of banamine, two doses of antacid to buffer his stomach - 100 milliliters each time (as our vet would say "50 for the ground, 50 for his stomach"...what a mess), and gone outside for general checks on his welfare and to anxiously look for poop piles more times than I can count. Oh, and then there was the run to Mountainair this afternoon to buy a new animal thermometer since I managed to drop and break the only one I had.

Initially I suspected I was dealing with colic, but it turns out that it's probably a virus. He's running a high fever - 104.4 has been his highest temperature so far (normal for Hank is 99.5). The vet says he's been treating a lot of horses around Albuquerque lately with this mystery virus; all we can do is keep the fever in check and if it lasts any longer than four days, put him on antibiotics. The bigger mystery is how Hank would have gotten the virus. He hasn't left the ranch or been within miles of any horse except Lyle since mid-November. Go figure.

The scary part now is that the virus is contagious. Hank is the model patient, standing quietly and patiently every time I stick the thermometer up his butt, and he doesn't even flinch when I give him a shot. If I have to go through this with Lyle, it won't be pretty. And if Alan gets it...I don't even want to think about it since I can't even halter him yet.

Living alone, the safety factor, and death by iPod

Living by myself in the middle of nowhere, I am acutely aware of the consequences of mishandling power tools, or getting dumped off a horse and landing in cactus, or trying to kill a rattlesnake with a shovel. There's nobody around to save me but myself. So I try to remember to keep my cell phone in my pocket when I'm outside (and hope that it will have a signal when I really need it), and I'm always listening to the voice inside my head that says "don't do something stupid" whenever I plug in a saw or stand on a ladder.

My daily walk with Smooch is not supposed to be a situation when I have to concern myself with safety. Ok, there were a few times when the neighbor's cows charged us, but I know now to carry a few rocks to throw in our defense. I never thought my iPod could cause me grievous harm. Silly me. The first time this happened, I blew it off as a coincidence; the second time, I learned my lesson. Will there be third time? If I'm found dead in the mud room, you'll all know why.

Here's what happens. I get home with Smooch from our walk. I stand in the mud room and start to take off various layers of winter clothing...the hat, the gloves, the scarf. I'm still listening to the iPod since a podcast or a good song hasn't ended. The iPod is in the front pocket of the Carhartt quilted barn jacket I'm wearing. Have I mentioned that I live in the high desert and the air is very dry? I unzip the jacket, start to remove it and ZZZZZZZZAAAAAAPPPPPP!!! A charge of static electricity stronger than a jolt from my electric fence courses through my entire body and practically knocks me against the wall. I hate it when that happens.

Now all I have to do to prevent this from recurring is, of course, remember to turn off the iPod and remove it from my pocket BEFORE I take off my jacket. A no-brainer, right? Wrong. Any activity that begins with the word "remember" already has two strikes against it. Alas, spring will be here soon, I won't have to wear a jacket, and the warming temperatures might thaw out my brain.

Puppy Bowl vs Super Bowl

Superbowl Sunday – too windy outside to stand up. But Shorty, the farrier, arrived right on time to trim the boys’ hooves. He spoke to our vet after the recent drama with Lyle, and I think we’re all on the same wavelength regarding how Lyle’s hooves should be managed. George had his second trimming and behaved very nicely, while Alan looked on with great interest. I had Shorty feed Alan lots of carrot pieces so Alan would start to view Shorty as a good guy, instead of the big hulk with the rasp who would one day make him stand on three feet.

Neighbor Katya called in the afternoon and said she really wanted to come over and watch the puppy bowl on Animal Planet with me and Smooch. So that’s what we did.

Clearly, Smooch preferred to watch the puppies play and had no interest in the football game.

But then along came the Budweiser commercial and we all pawsed to swoon over Hank the Clydesdale.