Meet Chuck

Alan and I are having too much fun with this clicker training stuff. Since the whole point is for Alan to get used to the touch of my hand, I added one of my old gloves to the end of the Chuck-it. It's taken on a life of its own now, so I call it Chuck.

I am dazzled by how receptive Alan is to this training. He seems eager to play and doesn’t get distracted by George or the horses watching us from the peanut gallery outside the corral. I lose track of time and what starts out to be a 15-minute session turns into 30 because Alan doesn’t lose interest. When the session is over and I’m just doing chores or feeding, he’s much more relaxed when I’m near him. This is all seeming too good to be true.



I took these pictures this morning. With Chuck's tail(?) tucked under my arm, I still have two hands available to hold my camera in one and hand out treats with the other. (If I were using a real clicker, I'd be in deep quiche but I'm faking the click noise with my tongue.) But the camera is a distraction for both of us so until/unless I can teach George how to press the shutter, these may be the last pictures you'll see for awhile.

By the end of our session tonight, I was able to rub Chuck on Alan's forehead and cheeks - not for a long time, but for long enough to want to run in the house and tell you all "it's working! it's working!"

The grand plan

After reading about my dilemma with Alan, Billie over at camera-obscura directed me to the Diary of DaVinci, a fearful horse who didn’t want to be touched. From reading through that, and thinking back to Victoria’s story of clicker training her horse Siete, I have come up with a training plan for Alan. And after our first session this morning, I’m very optimistic.

For my clicker-training target, I am using an object that he has never seen and has no reason to fear. It’s a Chuck-it that has very good karma, as I used it to launch a bazillion tennis balls to my beloved yellow lab Annie.

Alan picked up on the touch the Chuck-it/hear a click/get a treat concept in about two seconds. The treat is a tiny piece of carrot or a pellet of equine senior that is so small he has to lick it out of my hand. Once he’s completely comfortable with the Chuck-it and associates it with only positive things, I will use it to scratch his neck and keep progressing until I can scratch him all over. And some day, of course, I hope to be able to rub him with my hand instead of the Chuck-it. I’m committed to three short training sessions every day, and I’m confident this is going to work.

Shorty the farrier was here this morning, and George behaved like a seasoned veteran for his third trimming. Then I had Shorty hold the lead rope while I gave George his spring shots. I was shocked to discover how thick a burro’s skin is compared to a horse’s. I had to really push to insert the needles. But George was a trooper and stood quietly for all three injections. I can only hope that Alan will do the same eight weeks from now.

At a crossroads with Alan

It has been five months since George and Alan, the yearling BLM burros I adopted, joined the herd. George is now halter trained, craves human attention and affection, stands calmly and willingly for the farrier, and would probably come in the house to watch tv with me if I’d let him. Alan will reach out to touch my hand, take a treat and calmly stand about a foot away from me, but to get any closer is to invade his flight zone and he stresses...leaves, backs up, jumps over the hay tub to get away. He watches me hug George, watches me groom him and kiss his nose and get the goobers out of his eyes. In my heart, I know if I am patient, Alan will come around and want to enjoy the same sort of relationship with me that I have with George. But in my head, I know that he needs his vaccinations. My vet looked at his shot records yesterday and said I could hold off until May, but I shouldn’t put them off any longer than that.

So here are the two scenarios I envision:
1. I spend as much time as possible with Alan over the next eight weeks and hope and pray that he comes around to trusting me, accepting my touch and being haltered so that I can give him his shots without any undue trauma.
2. He doesn’t come around by the end of eight weeks, so I have no choice but to close him in his stall, move a corral panel between him and me to safely contain him, ply him with as many pieces of carrots as necessary, and give him his shots. I know this will probably destroy any bit of trust he has in me, but to not vaccinate him is to risk his health.

Being a glass-half-full kind of person, I believe Alan will come around. But if anybody out there has any suggestions on how I might ensure that, I’m listening.

A day at the vet

A planned trip to the vet is always better than an emergency trip to the vet, but not by much. The stress of getting there makes whatever actually happens there seem like no big deal. Amazingly, it was not raining, snowing, muddy or otherwise treacherous this morning --- just Bumpy...with a capital B. Someday someone will explain to me – in a way that makes sense – how and why dirt roads become washboards. To date, only men have tried to provide these explanations, hence I still don’t understand.

After 2 hours and five minutes and 80-something miles, Hank, Lyle and I arrived at the Albuquerque Equine Clinic safely. Yes, there are vets a little closer to the ranch, but since I’ve put my favorite vet’s kids through nine years of private school and am now contributing to their college fund, I feel a certain loyalty. As he was introducing me today to the new techs and a new vet, he said he normally doesn’t bother to do that...except for the five-star customers like me who rack up the frequent flyer miles there. Gotta love a vet with a sense of humor. I complained that he still hadn’t put a plaque with my name over the new surgery wing...I had paid for it, hadn’t I?

In any event, we xrayed Lyle’s front feet again to check the sole depth and overall balance - both feet are looking real good. The boys got their spring shots, and I brought home shots to give to George and Alan. Can’t wait.

The sun sinks slowly in the west

Group Graze

Seeing eye to eye

The day the Easter Bunny died

Easter dinner was quite a success; everyone seemed to enjoy the meal and the smoke detectors didn’t go off once. The horses love having company, and my friend Kim brings out the best in Hank and Lyle.


And Kim’s daughter Ruby certainly captured Alan’s attention.

We were all sitting on the front porch...relaxed, mellow, enjoying the warmth of the sun in the late afternoon. Smooch came over to join us, noticed that the kids had left the garden gate open, and off she went. I was concerned but not panicked - I figured I could lure her back with a dog biscuit or two. I kept her in my sights as she raced around the ranch, running from tree to tree looking for something...who knew what at the time. Alan and George sensed something was up and came running from somewhere. Alan saw Smooch and instantly went on the offensive, chasing her before she could chase him. That’s when I started to get worried, not wanting equine hoof to meet canine head.

About this time the Easter bunny appeared – Smooch scared him out from under a tree and gave chase. Within the span of about 100 yards, Smooch caught the rabbit, picked him up by the scruff of his neck, and raced back to the front porch with this big old rabbit hanging out of her mouth to eat him, much to the horror of my dinner guests. Brave Kim put a head lock on Smooch and somehow managed to unlock the rabbit from Smooch’s mouth. Then she calmly picked up the dead Easter bunny and walked over and tossed him into the back of Sue’s truck. What a bizarre way to end the day. But we still all had a nice time and will be recounting this story for many Easters to come.

Back in the saddle

Having horses is not a hobby, it’s a lifestyle; and for me, having horses is not about riding every day, it’s about taking care of them and having them in my life. I get as much pleasure out of spending a few hours walking around the pasture with them as they graze – listening to them chew, watching them decide what and what not to eat, observing the movements and behavior of my little herd – as I do riding. But when a week comes along when I can spend hours in the pasture every evening AND put together two days of riding in a row, well hell’s bells it just doesn’t get any better than that. So it’s been a very good week.

I tried something new in the arena on Friday - I rode Hank while listening to music on my iPod. I wanted to be more disciplined with what I was schooling him to do, instead of losing focus as I usually do and jumping from one thing to another too quickly. So we worked on gait transitions for two songs, then we’d switch to rollbacks for one song, then a George Strait tune would start and we’d...ok I’d...hum along and we’d enjoy a nice leasurely two-step...I mean trot. Bottom line, we both had fun.

Yesterday, I combined a ride with an errand and rode Hank down to the neighbor’s to pick up a bag of cashews. Huh? Silly me forgot to pick up a main ingredient for one of the dishes I was making today, and neighbor Sue kindly offered to get them while she was in town. Riding Hank away from the herd is always a challenge but he/we did good. It was a gorgeous day made even better by being back in the saddle.

But there will be no riding today. My Easter guests will arrive in six hours and I’d best get my butt out of this chair and start cooking. Stop by if you’re hungry - we’re having ham with pineapple avocado salsa, carrot cashew quiche, Pioneer Woman dinner rolls, roasted asparagus, and my signature dish - Mom’s potato salad.

Vote for George!

That picture of George you see a few posts under this one? The one where he’s listening to the sun set? Well...it’s going to be one of the four entries in the equusite.com Picture of the Day contest on Saturday. So go there and click on “Today’s Pictures” if you’d like to vote for him.

I love the Picture of the Day contest. Every day when I sit down at my computer with my first cup of coffee, before I even think about doing any real work, I open my 11 favorite websites in tabs (do y’all know about the “open in tabs” thing or is that just a Safari feature?) “Open in tabs” was made for people like me...those who need instant gratification...who HATE waiting for anything...who grew up on the east coast. It’s sort of like opening one excel spreadsheet that has a bunch of tabs – one window is open, but you can flip between the tabs, reading whichever loads first and never having to suffer through the www (world wide wait). Anyway, I can’t start my day without looking at the daily horse pictures on equusite. Some are good, a few are stellar, and they all put a smile on my face. I hope George’s picture puts a smile on some faces tomorrow.

The scene that made my heart sing

To the casual observer, this might look like two dead horses and a couple of lazy burros...to me, it was tangible proof of a happy herd. Maybe the wind has been the driving force, but over the past week the horses and burros have spent a lot more time socializing. Hank, particularly, has sought out George's company, and I’ve even caught him grooming George. Though too macho to ever admit it, I suspected Hank had taken a liking to the little rascal. So when I looked outside my bedroom window this morning and caught them all taking a nap together, nestled near the trees against the wind, I just couldn’t be happier. There was Alan, the littlest, taking his shift on predator patrol, with Hank and Lyle trusting him enough to go into the deepest sleep. It was enough to make me stop whining about the wind and be grateful for this beautiful life.

George listens to the sun set

Barn wood...sanded, sawed and stunning?

Not really, but I like alliterations. With the living room finally painted, I could finally make the design choices I’d been postponing pending non-white walls. I wanted to add a few color accents in keeping with my cowgirl-chic aesthetic (do I watch too much HGTV or what?)

So now I have a barn-red barn-wood box shelf that fills the awkward space on the north wall...

A t-post green frame around a favorite Nancy Cawdrey tile mural...


And a t-post green cornice in the office.

More wind whining

Yesterday's wind seems like a gentle breeze compared to today's. I googled 'dust bowl' to see how my whining compares to the Okies'..."During the great dust storms of the 1930s in Oklahoma, the weather threw up so much dirt that, at times, there was zero visibility and everything was covered in dirt. No matter how tightly Oklahomans sealed their homes, they could not keep the dirt from entering." Been there.

Another day, another windstorm

Since I had to spend the better part of my day in the truck, then in Home Depot, then in Wal-Mart (and I despise Wal-Mart), at least I didn't miss out on any fun I could have been having back here. The wind is keeping me planted inside. The highlight of the day so far? I bought another power tool - a sander! Yee-haw! Last weekend, I picked up a load of barn wood, and there's been a lot of sawing and hammering going on ever since. Today, we sand. Tomorrow, we post pictures of our latest project. Bet you can't wait, eh?

A few years back, before I moved to the 7MSN, I would have been spending my Saturday wranglin' in the wind at Walkin N Circles ranch, a rescue facility for the unwanted horses of New Mexico. For as windy as it can be here, the wind was always howlin' there. But those horses needed to get fixed and fed despite the weather. And when the chores got done, I'd pull out my camera and take pictures of my friends. Since this one is full of blowing sand and dust, it seems only fitting to post it today.

Summer, Fall, Winter, Wind

Looking for spring

The boys are spending a lot more time out in the pasture, looking for the first green morsels of the season.

Why I live in the middle of nowhere

So my horses and burros can have room to run.

Finding a good farrier

Horsekeeping offers many challenges: finding a good hay supplier, finding a good farrier, finding time to ride your horses between all the horsekeeping chores. I have a few farrier stories to tell, but this one tops them all.

When I got my first horse, Emmy Lou (Lyle’s mom), I knew precious little about anything equine-related, so I relied upon the advice of several horse-owning friends to accelerate the learning curve. As soon as I brought her home, I made an appointment with a recommended farrier to trim and reset Emmy Lou’s shoes. For purposes of this story, I shall call him Butthead.

The first time Butthead showed up, sweet-but-a-little-lazy Emmy took to leaning on him when he was working on her. Butthead didn’t appreciate this very much and yelled at her a few times, finally resorting to whomping her once in the belly. Hmmm, I thought. I guess that’s what farriers do.

The next time he showed up, I observed that Emmy Lou wasn’t leaning on him; maybe it was because he had her back leg stretched out REALLY far to the side? Hmmm, I thought. Why didn’t you just do that last time instead of whomping her? Being a horse-owning newbie, it seemed logical enough.

So Butthead has three feet done and he moves to the last one, her left hind. I’m standing off to the left side of Emmy’s head, holding the lead rope, theoretically the safest place to be at this point. Butthead has Emmy’s leg stretched out REALLY far to the side, he’s bent over with her hoof between his knees, and she’s not leaning on him. Of course she’s not leaning on him - she’s in such an awkward position she can barely stand up! She’s uncomfortable, she’s getting pissed off, and she finally says, “Enough of this sh*t, Butthead.”

She kicks her leg back, with him still hanging on to her foot, then she kicks her leg forward, launching him like a missile. He sails through the air in an arc and lands...directly on the side of my right knee. I drop to the ground. Butthead stands up and starts screaming, “That horse is a devil, she should be put down, she’s not safe to be around!” I’m still sitting on the ground. “She bent my glasses,” he whines.

“Excuse me, Butthead? There’s a phone hanging right inside that tack room door. Could you hand it to me, please?” “Hello, 9-1-1 operator? Could you send an ambulance to 39 Juniper?”

“Are you hurt???” asks Butthead.
“Yes, as a matter of fact. I can’t seem to move my leg from the hip down.”

A fire truck finally arrives, 45 minutes after I made my call. (And this is when I was living in the middle of somewhere.) The very cute firemen make their apologies for the late-arriving ambulance...seems the regular unit is in for repairs so one would be arriving ‘any minute now’ from Albuquerque. They were trying to make me as comfortable as possible in the meantime and I’m praying I don’t puke all over them. Cute fireman #1 is kneeling next to me taking my blood pressure when he looks up and shrieks, “There’s a pig on your lawn!” Yes, city boy, it’s a pig. Now could you just call and find out where that ambulance is? I’m in trouble here.

An hour goes by while the cute firemen keep me entertained and Butthead stands around shaking his head and whining about my she-devil horse. The ambulance finally shows up and off I go to Albuquerque, only to learn my leg is broken in a dozen places. The doctor called it a “tibia plateau fracture” and warned me if I dared to put any weight on it during the next four months, he wouldn’t be able to put me back together again. So, just eight weeks after getting my first horse, I spent the summer in a wheelchair with a hideous mechanical device clamping my leg together, unable to be with her or take care of her, let alone ride her. And it just about killed me.

A new farrier came out the day after “the incident” and finished shoeing Emmy’s foot, and he remained my farrier for six years until I moved to the 7MSN. Finding a competent, reliable farrier willing to make the trek out here was almost as painful as the broken leg. Farriers are usually either competent or reliable, but not both. After a succession of them, then a decision to spend my next vacation going to farrier school, my vet recommended a guy named Shorty. Don’t let his stature fool you - he’s darned good.





Kidding. I saw this picture and couldn’t resist posting it. (Thanks, Mark Eve, at the Buckeye Ranch.) The real Shorty isn’t short at all, so I don’t know why that’s his name. And except for a few months last summer when HIS leg was broken (and my bad farrier karma had nothing to do with it), he has reliably and competently trimmed the boys' feet. And I’ve never had a reason to call him Butthead.

How 'bout them cowgirls?

A mere 24 hours ago, I was breathing the same air as George Strait. Our seats were pretty close...to the back of the stage. So I got to look at George’s butt for two hours, butt I’m not complaining. The acoustics from this location were better than in most places in the UNM Pit, and he was sure soundin’ good last night. He just stood there and sang and sang and sang, hit after hit after hit. With a few surprises thrown in, too. For his encore, he sang two Johnny Cash songs - go figure! Walk the Line and Folsom Prison Blues. And he rocked ‘em. You da man, George. His Ace in the Hole band (though there’s enough of them I think they deserve to be called the Ace in the Hole Orchestra) is simply the best.


The set list was heavy on his cowboy songs, and it just doesn’t get any better than that. And since it was cowgirls’ night out, neighbor Sue and her daughter, Katya, and I were just plum tickled. This being a milestone birthday celebration for Sue and the reason we were out past our bedtimes in the first place, I catered a pre-concert tailgate party in the cab of my truck.


A bit of pre-concert reconnaissance allowed us to park in the right spot and avoid the traffic jams after the show was over, but it was still 1 a.m. before I got home. The herd was surprisingly understanding and didn’t complain too loudly when I slept in til 7:30. But I needed my coffee desperately. Chores first, though. So I tossed hay and scooped poop and thought about coffee. Then I finished my chores, made coffee, and thought about George Strait. Then the “your coffee’s done” alarm sounded, I ran to the kitchen and UGHHH. I had to start all over again - I forgot to put the coffee in the filter.


And the rest of the day went pretty much the same as the first pot of coffee.

This is where the cowgirl rides away

A mere 24 hours from now, I will be breathing the same air as George Strait...sigh...along with a bazillion other concert-goers of course, but still. You’d think at my age I would have gotten over this crush.  Nope. The reason I’ve never remarried is because anybody less than George Strait would just be settling, and I’m not gonna do it.

Stop reading this RIGHT NOW!

Go immediately to Confessions of a Pioneer Woman.

But come back after you’ve read every entry in the archives, focusing particularly on the 30 chapters of Black Heels to Tractor Wheels. Ok, maybe not every entry...I’ll never see any of you again. But her blog is THAT GOOD - she’s even won a Bloggie for best-kept-secret weblog, and she’s nominated again this year, for best writing.

After a few hours of digging-picking-tossing-repeating yesterday, the weather went down the toilet and I was forced to come indoors and read the aforementioned blog for hours. But then my butt got sore from sitting at my desk for so long and the herd was braying-whinnying-whining for their supper, so I had to stop at January 2007. I’m looking forward to catching up on the next 365 plus entries - she doesn’t miss a day.

The blogger was a city girl who now lives on a ranch in the middle of nowhere. Sound familiar? The similarities stop there, though, as she has a husband and four kids, poor thing. Seems like the whole universe knew about her site except me, judging from the regular number of comments to her posts. I happened upon it thanks to Kristi at Team Donk. She listed my blog on her website as one of her favorites, along with Pioneer Woman’s. Being the nosy buttinski I am, I wandered on over there and my life hasn’t been the same since.

A rancher-woman's work is never done

I saddled up Hank yesterday and gave him a job to do - help me find patches of a particularly evil cactus variety that I had decided to eradicate from the ranch. From high atop his back, the cacti would be easy to spot, and I would return later with a shovel and the Ranger to start making a dent in this chore.

On cactiguide.com (yes, Virginia, there is a website for everything), I learned that this stuff is called Grusonia clavata, also known more appropriately as Dagger Cholla (that’s choy-yuh, not chole-la for the uninitiated...one of the first lessons I learned when I moved to New Mexico was to never say any word I’d never seen before until I heard a native say it...and yes, this was learned the hard way...I lived off Calle Nortena in Bernalillo county). I also learned that this species had an encounterability rating of “rare.” Clearly, the authors of cactiguide.com had never been to the 7MSN.

Now why would a reasonably sane person attempt to eradicate cacti from the desert? Heaven forbid one of my horse's or burro's velvety muzzles should accidentally bump into one, and we all know the grass is always greener at the base of the cacti, so the likelihood of said accident is extremely high, particularly when one of the muzzles in question belongs to I-never-met-anything-I-didn’t-want-to-investigate-further Lyle. In addition, one less patch of cacti is one less painful place I might get dumped when Hank or Lyle get western on me.

So today, when it was too windy to enjoy riding, I started to dig up Dagger Cholla. Mercifully, it’s isolated to a few spots on the ranch, unlike last year’s locoweed (a subject for another time). Of course the boys had to try to help me - Lyle provides all the entertainment one could possibly need to take one’s mind off the tedium of dig-pick-toss, repeat.

Everybody comes out to investigate...with Lyle leading the way, of course

Hmm...maybe this handle is edible.

Hmm...maybe there's a carrot in one of these pockets.

Hank, the Playground Bully

Saturday morning. George and Alan finish their breakfast and now it’s time for recess. From a distance, Hank watches their raucous games of jolly ball keepaway, then cone keepaway. He decides to join in on the fun. The burros want nothing to do with this playground bully and walk away to find something else to do. Poor Hank stands alone.