Reader Shannon just sent me this delightful photograph of BLM bad ass guard donkey Larsen.
"He now lives with friends in VA where he guards their beef cattle on their 300 acre farm. I have too many stories of Larsen to go on about, but the one thing I will tell you was that I never worried about my horse alone in his country pasture with Larsen around! They kill snakes, coyotes, bob cats (!), dogs and on an on. As long as you teach your donkey about who belongs on the farm, all outsiders will be defended against."
I'm going to need all of the stories like this I can get to talk Dennis into another equine. Last night, his response was-- No Kimberly You Are Not Getting A Donkey. (When I married him, he owned zero horses. Now, we have five ... sooooooo ... we shall see ... )
I've been thinking about goslings. And baby chicks. One of my favorite things to do in the Spring is go to the feed store and come home with a box filled with peeping, honking barnyard birds. I love my birds.
But then I've been asking myself if I just want to feed that old bobcat this spring ... you know, the one who ate up everyone this year, including the barn cats? And I got real sad thinking about not having goofy ganders to follow me around on their orange floppy feet. (Years ago, we had a gosling that accompanied my husband Dennis every step of the way during the building of the front deck, until the sweet little fellow got too tired, and then took to napping in the sawdust in the shade of the table saw as Dennis sawed away. Damned bobcat eventually got that nice gander too.)
And then the idea of a guard donkey occurred to me. Uh ... in a flash of light. Like tablets handed down to Moses from the big dude himself. Well, actually, I got the idea from Farmgirl Fare.
Apparently a donkey can open up a whole can of serious teeth and hooves whup ass on a predator. They are highly territorial beasts. I am heartened by this story about guard donkeys on a turkey farm in Colorado--
The young turkeys (who were all gone to be dinner) live in a large open field, with a tall hoop house with perches inside. The young turkeys go in at night. They are protected by his two guard donkeys. We got to meet the donkeys, and after a polite offering of my hand to be sniffed, I was allowed to pet their heads and long ears. Guard donkeys
Dallas explained that donkeys just hate everything in the dog clan: dogs, coyotes, and foxes. In the previous year he lost fifty young birds one night; that's when he hired the donkeys as guards. Since then he hasn't lost any birds.
I believe I can get my hands on a wild donkey (an old gnarly one with a real bad attitude about predators, perhaps) from the BLM in April. April 17-19 to be exact in Artesia, NM.
I hear that girl donkeys aka jennies (I think that's the correct terminology) do the best for this job. I could name her, you know, Xena, for you know who. Donkeyzilla is under consideration as well.
I even read in my internet wanderings a story about donkeys killing a black bear that wandered into their field, although I'm not sure I believe that one.
Watch out you ol' bobcat, I may get my geese and pretty plump hens this spring after all, and the posse may be comin' to get you.
Last night I didn’t get home until well after dark. So that meant the hens and the lone goose hadn’t been locked up safe in the henhouse, because I secure the birds (you start talking like this after a few years of being married to a former Navy submariner) when I get home, which is generally before dark. After Dennis did the count, we knew that old bobcat had snagged another one of the Rhode Island Reds.
She was such a good layer, I mused, shaking my head, peering into the empty nests amidst the sole survivor goose who was marching back and forth with his chest thrust out like a prizefighter, honking, and the chickens twisting their heads to eyeball me, reporting cluck cluck cluck in a feather ruffled frenzy.
The tenacious heeler dogs were all rattled up. Lila couldn’t stop pacing the house. Something had gotten beneath her speckled skin, but unfortunately she couldn’t breathe a word. If I could let the heelers run at will around the place, which I can’t because of the road, I imagine they’d have run that marauder off by now. Sent his bobtail skittering across the railroad tracks and back to where he belongs.
This morning my draft horse Toby came plodding towards me, lifting each big hoof methodically and putting it down, one in front of the other, until we were nearly nose to nose, and I stood there betting that the 1,800-pound picture of placid domestication had been witness to nine heinous murders in my barnyard. He sighed. Heavily.
I had some friends in Santa Fe whose house was robbed years ago. And since they figured their yellow lab was the only witness, they called in an animal psychic. Well, actually, they had the animal psychic call their yellow lab on the phone (at this point in their story over dinner, I can tell you I was having a hard time maintaining my poker face), after which the animal psychic provided them with a detailed description of the robber.
Well, that robber was never caught.
Years ago I was riding my rawboned, cow-detesting appaloosa mare Lacey Jay down the Pojoaque creek when we came upon a woman who was walking alone. She had the contrived look of a Santa Fe seeker about her in her pressed gypsy skirt, too new cowboy boots, ruffled shirt and all that lustrous golden hair tied back in a fringey scarf. She was using a walking stick that was at least a head taller than she was. Kind of like Gandalf’s from The Lord of the Rings.
So I wasn’t too surprised, after we’d exchanged a few pleasantries, when the seeker woman placed her hands on each side of Lacey Jay’s polka dotted head, stared deep into the mare’s white sclera-rimmed eyes—which generally gave the uninformed pause, thinking the horse was some kind of bug-eyed bronc, which really wouldn’t have been all that far off—and then shut her own tight, for a good long time. I sat back in the saddle, slightly confused and not wanting to be rude, gathered up the reins, and hoping the testy mare wouldn’t bite during what looked like some kind of New Age mind meld. And just as Lacey Jay was about to get real annoyed (I could feel the piss and vinegar twisting right up her spine towards a mouth full of big yellow teeth), that lady let go and simply walked off.
Ah. The simple pleasure of riding a horse in the snow. My appaloosa of steel, Teyla, marched resolutely across country as she always does, and would have gone all day if I hadn't gotten pretty cold. My husband's polish Arabian mare danced and pranced, wide-eyed, snorting, because everything looks so ... gasp ... different when covered in white stuff.
Apparently Arabian horse eating monsters lurk beneath the white stuff.
The snow we've been expecting finally arrived in the wee hours of the morning. We're feeding horses, breaking the water on the gander's swimming pool, being tagged by heeler dogs, and looking for the super sneaky bobcat, who has left us no tracks in the snow.
This is our New Mexico version of The Dangerous book for Boys, which I love, by the way.
Where I follow 10-year-old C. and the tenacious heeler dogs across the railroad tracks, and into the realm of the ... bobcats. Luckily, they are shy creatures. And we didn't see one.
My ranch backs up to thousands of acres of public land. Unfortunately, most of it goes straight up, so can't get my horses up there without trailering them a little ways.
It is a day in which it is not fitting that salvation be idle, so that you may speak of that heavenly day that has no night and of the sun that does not set because it is perfect. Say then in your heart that you are this perfect day and that in you lives the light that does not fail. The Gospel of Truth
Every autumn morning at sunrise you can pretty much find our five horses in this upper corner of the paddock. This is the sweet spot that the sun hits first, where they can soak up the first rays of the day. The ground up here is filled with black coal, from the ATS&F steam engines that used to run on the track above us. It drinks up the sunshine like a sponge.
Sometimes I get the feeling that the horses are celebrating the dawn in their quiet, equine way. Sometimes I wonder why we don't greet the sun with banners and drums and songs each and every morning.
Isn't it a miracle? The red orb rising up over the horizon. The way it caresses your face.
I would have made a great pagan. (Well, maybe deep down I am.)
This beautiful song is by Rolf Harris. My husband grew up listening to Australian music as his mother had quite an extensive collection. Gotta love it. My grade-school kids adore his music. I suspect yours would too.
I'm cursing the dark that's suddenly enveloping my ranch this evening at approximately 5:00 PM with the time change. I'm stomping off into the pinon trees, behind the barn, looking for the water hose I know is coiled there somewhere, when I realize that the trees are no longer green, but just black shapes in an even blacker gloom, it's inkiness broken only by the stars that are popping out of the matte fabric one by one over the mesa. And I think of how we never really found any pawprints of the bobcat that's been systematically raiding us each night for a week.
I think of my favorite goose Darwin getting dragged off in the grip of steely jaws over the fence on a night just like this.
Then five of my Rhode Island Reds hens.
And my barn cat Boone.
I've got it all buttoned down now, I tell myself, casting a glance towards the hen house where my birds are locked up for the night. But we never did find those pawprints, although we searched each afternoon.
And suddenly I feel the cool fingertips of the prematurely black evening sneaking their way across my shoulders, tickling their way up the back of my neck, and they start the wheels turning. Whatever it is that's been eating my pets all week-- because we never did find those pawprints and maybe it's not a fifty pound bobcat, but a mountain lion, or a big black bear--could be watching me from the unfathomable shadows that are closing in around me now. And I'm starting to regret leaving the tenacious heeler dogs up at the house and not having a gun with me. And knowing that Dennis won't be home for another hour gives whatever that big thing is that's lurking in the shadows ample time to cart me off too.
Oh, quit being so silly, I tell myself. And high tail it back to the house through the pitch black.
The Stag symbolises a person's longing for liberation. Aggression. Strong male influence. The stag is seen as a noble masculine animal. The stag is also a medieval symbol of Jesus. There's a lot of mythology surrounding this magnificent animal.
He travels to the high, wild places. He disappears into the dark forest, where occasionally I may dare to follow. To me, he speaks of a journey.
And there have been some major journey preparations going on around my house this week with my two men preparing for their week-long deer hunt beginning this Friday. Such cooking as I have never seen. Although I did manage to get a bowl (or two) of the savory and hot hot hotgreen chile stew, because Dennis made something like three gallons, it seemed. I was not invited, or, quite frankly, allowed to help with any of the preparations. This is the staked-out territory of the males in my house. (Although I did talk Dennis into taking the horse trailer for sleeping in vs. a tent, not quite as macho, but infinitely warmer and drier. So see, there's a bit of female influence in the mix after all...)
This is 10-year-old C.'s first hunt. And actually, he is accompanying Dennis, not hunting himself. He hasn't done the hunter safety course yet.
Having kids is a series of little letting goes, it seems. And that's as it should be.
I wonder how different my little boy will return to me? The one who still lets me kiss him bye (every now and then, if I'm really fast) on the top of his blonde head in the mornings as I drop him off at school. The one who still reminds me of a puppy? How can a little boy hunt the stag, hind, roe, without something growing up just a little more inside?
Well, I'll be happy to welcome my little hunter home. (And my big one too. One of these days I'll tell you the story about his standoff with a black bear over an elk. Which he won, with nary a firearm and what I'd call sheer force of personality. It's legendary. At least in my house, and around a few campfires over the years when we cajole him into telling it.)
The Augur (pl: augures) was a priest and official in the classical world, especially ancient Rome. His main role was to interpret the will of the gods by studying the flight of the birds (flying in groups/alone, what noises they make as they fly, direction of flight and what kind of birds they are), known as "taking the auspices." Wikipedia.
The secret cause of all suffering is mortality itself, which is the prime condition of life. It cannot be denied if life is to be affirmed. --Joseph Campbell.
The kids and I arrive home last night to find the heeler dogs out of their kennel and the five geese attacked and terrorized, huddled together in a bloody heap in a corner of the fence. The two old ganders look like they have taken the brunt of it. The young gander and the two female geese seem the least damaged, although blanketed in shock, the final defense of prey.
Upon further inspection, I see that one of the lungs of the largest gander, Hermano, is punctured. “Oh no. Oh no.” I am whispering, touching his broken body softly, so softly, wondering at the frailty of his flesh, bones, feathers, this fragile package that houses spirit. His once sleek back is covered in puncture wounds from those senseless, spoiled dogs, and I hate them for a minute, hate them with every fiber of my being. I detest their waste, because this carnage has nothing to do with hunger.
We're off to the NM State Fair today in Albuquerque. It's the Draft Horse Show. Hours and hours of draft horses. I am in heaven already at the thought of all those heavy horses and the order of fried bread with powdered sugar on top that I am planning on eating. State fair fried bread--the food of the gods.
Of course, it is raining. Torrential, cold, silver stuff that happens at the high altitudes. You see it walking towards you from miles away among the rolling hills and the mesas as it strays down off of the Pecos mountains and then all of a sudden you are in the middle of a deluge. The horses are not very pleased, to say the least. The heeler dogs are muddy, wet messes but they are in my kitchen chewing on their rawhide bones as I write this because I'm, well ... a big softie. Nothing that can't be mopped up.
From the feel of Miss Polka Dots' coat this morning, seems that winter is on its way. Are your horses starting to get their warm coats?
In a blink of an eye, they will all look like shaggy bears, and I'll be busting the ice off of the top of the water tank, because the stock tank heater will give out on me like it does every year, several times.
Sometimes I think ol' Jehovah could get himself a pretty good job as a lighting director on the Broadway stage in New York City, if he was of a mind to.
Might be a bit of a reprieve from hanging this kind of elaborate beauty outside of my front porch every morning.
This beautiful photo Meadow Mists is by displaced soul on Flickr. Check out all of displaced soul's photographs. They are really beautiful. See the set entitled Land of Enchantment, which is what New Mexico is called.
If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is: Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern. --William Blake
We are up at dawn to go cut wood. They say when you cut wood, it warms you three times before you ever even get around to burning it--once when you cut it, once when you split it, and once when you stack it. But this morning is cold, and I didn't bring my jacket. "You'll warm up once we get going," Dennis says. He is the wood cutter in the family, wielding the Stihl chainsaw that still makes me nervous with all those steel teeth, it's rip cord brain, it's gasoline breath. It seems a little too eager for an arm or a leg when all it gets is a mouth full of tree sap. I keep a wary eye on it.
I am the stacker. Me and the kids. We pile the fresh cut logs into the back of the truck until it's full. But they're at their dad's this weekend.
The clouds are hanging low, so low they settle on the buffalo grass until they are embraced by the drought-brown blades. The morning is all wrapped up in lamb's wool, strangely insulated. Usually the sun is so bright here you have to wear a hat, a long-sleeved shirt, jeans, and boots, even in the heat of summer, just to not get eaten up by it. I'm talking devoured. One look around at the weathered fenceposts, weathered barns, weathered sunflowers, weathered blackbirds, weathered coyotes, weathered faces of the people who've lived here close to the sun for a very long time at something like 6,400 feet above sea level and higher, and you'd understand what I'm talking about.
I'm sitting on the tail gate of the truck, drinking my coffee, watching the mist walking between the Ponderosa like long-legged, silver giants. The idea that I have a whole thermos full of the hot, black elixir is making up for the fact that my polarfleece jacket is draped over one of the pine chairs in my dining room at home, a place that might as well exist in a whole different universe from where I am right now with the mist settling on my face in ozone-tinged droplets. I close my eyes, hear the argent ghosts murmuring, but I can't make out the words. Lick my lips. The taste of clouds and coffee is not unpleasant. I take another sip of the scalding stuff and watch the heelers disappear down the Forest Service road, squeezing through the weathered gate that hangs at a crazy angle between two weathered fence posts that aren't long for this world. The sister dogs travel side-by-side, like they are yoked together, and disappear into the shimmering curtain of white.
I step off of the back of the truck, and walk towards the gate. Stretch my hand out just on the other side, across the uneven top where the sun has been cribbing, naughty boy. And for a moment, I hope he gets a case of the colic. I try to touch the mist. But it disappears beneath my fingertips. Swirls and dissipates into mystery. I wonder what is on the other side of that gate, and where my silly dogs have gone off to.
One good rip of the cord, and the greedy chainsaw is chewing up all the silence of the morning. It flies all around us in pieces and bits to cover the earth like mulch. The heelers come trotting back like wind-up dog toys, tin ears pricked as if they are trying to see me through the increasing drizzle that makes me think longingly of polarfleece.
I'm surprised that the pale denizens of the Ponderosa forest don't turn tail and run. They cluster together beneath the pines land watch, like the the herd of Forest Service horses that usually winter here.
Every kid ought to get to ride in the back of a pickup truck out in the middle of the woods. At least once in their lives.
We're driving slow on the dirt Forest service roads, looking for a good place to cut wood. So if you're cringing, there's truly nothing to cringe about. This is always an adventure for my kids, and they've been doing this for years. Dogs, mom, kids all pile into the back of the old GMC and we're off, scouting out trees as Dennis drives us all down the rutted roads. You should see us looking for the Christmas tree each year. Sometimes we see elk.
We don't cut these big ponderosas. Our permit is for the pinon and the juniper. By clearing those out, we're making room for the ponderosa to flourish.
I've just gone through the process of becoming a Mentor in the Santa Fe schools for a child at risk. During the training we were told that a lot of these kids are bored, angry, restless, have difficult family lives, are flunking out, in trouble at school, could be here illegally, may not speak much English, don't read, etc. We talked about resiliency and why some kids thrive even in difficult circumstances while others don't.
I think about the resiliency of these Ponderosas. I think they were almost gone on the mesa, and now there are groves.
I have this dream about bringing horses to kids one of these days. Kids who need them.
So I'll begin here. This small step in the public schools for one hour a week on school property. I'm anxious to meet the child they match me with and begin. I am hoping that I am up to the task. It's time to give back. Praxis.
Every kid should get to ride in the back of a pickup truck beneath the blue sky on a gorgeous late summer day and fill their lungs to the brim with all this fresh air and possibility. Every kid.
From my little ranch here in northern New Mexico, the Carpathian Forest in Transylvania conjures up images of deep mystery and beauty in my imagination. Of somewhere, well ... else. A place many of us might visit only in our dreams.
I don't know if I'll ever get to travel to Julian and Danielle's Stefan cel Mare Equestrian Centre in Romania, but what I can do is travel through the words of a very excellent writer and storyteller as Julian blogs about their daily life on his blog Transylvanian Horseman. Definitely check this out. You are in for a real treat as this Transylvanian Horseman shares with you his vision of --
Stunning mountains, quiet and unspoiled, shelter a land and a way of life that has changed little in generations. Here, working horses still outnumber motor vehicles, providing transportation for people and goods and cultivating fields. Food is grown and produced locally, using age-old methods. The hardworking, hospitable people gather in close communities where family is the centre of life.
Boone the barn cat comes out of the barn to greet me every single solitary morning of the week. No matter what. The young Tom pussyfoots around the horses like most cats with a healthier sense of self-preservation most likely wouldn't. And then again, maybe Boone is just more easygoing than I would be if I were his size and shared my home with a herd of horses.
I thought I'd missed the Perseids this year, but Dennis tells me that he saw on the local news that we'll have a good view of them tonight from here in Northern New Mexico. We are literally sailing on our planet through a meteor storm at the moment. I always find that fact rather scintillating for some reason. I imagine myself riding on Toby through a starry night, his tail streaming after us, and we are a Persied. Every August I wait for the Perseids, but occasionally I miss them because I get caught up in the everyday life stuff--husband, two gradeschool-aged kids, five horses, two dogs, working full time, and the list goes on ...
I saw a pretty good Perseid the other night, right smack dab in the middle of some of that everyday stuff, and suddenly I was reminded that yes, indeed, it is the middle of yet another August. The heeler dogs were annoying me in the middle of the night, and I trekked half-asleep and pissed off across the backyard in my nightshirt and a pair of old, worn out clogs with the wild heeler sisters (At my heels. Where else?!) to banish them to their kennel for the night. (Not exactly a severe punishment for disrupting my sleep. They have their own straw bale dog house and ample room to romp.) As I turned, disgruntled and swearing, back for the house, where my family was soundly sleeping, I was stopped in my tracks by a Perseid sailing across the jet black sky above me, bright tail flying. If I was only half awake at that point, I was certainly wide awake at that moment.
Standing in the pasture with my horses in the dark of night to watch the stars is deeply satisfying. Perhaps tonight will be Perseids, pajamas, ponies ...
I'm thinking that other people are at the cinema tonight seeing the newest release. Sometimes I think that I don't get out much.
Poor Goliath, our little gosling, got killed in the recent hailstorm that decimated my sunflowers and did some serious damage to my husband's tender, young orchard. The hailstones were huge and pummeled us for 15 minutes. We watched out the windows of the house, helpless, as it came careening down. Tiny guy probably never saw it coming and just didn't make it to the hen house with his momma fast enough. It must have been akin to you or I being wolloped by a good-sized meteor as we're sitting on a park bench getting ready to eat our sack lunch or something.
I was thinking about the little fellow today as I was looking at my raggedy, dejected sunflowers, shaking my head ...
Goliath was born at the beginning of the summer, and I had to rescue him at least once and sometimes a couple of times a day as he managed to get out of the fence. In fact, he seemed hard-wired for escape. The idea of staying where he was supposed to stay seemed completely alien to him. And then once he'd get outside the fenceline, the gosling would panic and cry and cry and all of the adult geese would cry and cry back. And they'd all wind up bunched up together along the fenceline until I showed up like the cavalry. All this summer Goliath managed to not be eaten by Boone the barn cat (something you can probably also chalk up to his five committed bodyguards seen here) or whatever other critter that might have been passing by. I'd gone down to the barn to do some video blogging about the horses on the day I took this footage, when I discovered this drama in full swing.
Call me crazy, but I think goslings are a joy, and I miss Goliath. Even miss rescuing the baby goose from the wrong side of the fence on a regular basis. I just couldn't be around for that hailstone, unfortunately, which simply underscores my thoughts that the world is a wild and wooly and quite unpredictable place.
Here I am with that nice mare from the pasture next door and her little colt. She's a very good momma. She keeps a good eye on her little one, but I notice that she also lets the little fellow roam and romp. He occasionally gets in trouble with the other broodmares, who put the scamp in place pretty quickly if he is even moderately annoying.
Which, of course, he is.
It's amazing to me how one horse can stop another in its tracks with a flick of a nostril, the look in an eye. Especially the effect of such subtle physical gestures on a colt. Imp that he seems to be, he minds his mom and the brood mares as far as I can tell.
Baby animals are such a wonder. And then again, so are our own children.
My 9-year old son C. and the very very new colt in the pasture next door. This little colt will let me near him and allow me to touch him, but I can tell he is just a little leery of me. When C. approached him on this beautiful March Saturday, the colt frolicked away a few steps, all full of himself. C. was very disappointed and turned to walk away from him, saying, "Oh, mom, he's not going to let me near him." Just as the words were out of the little boy's mouth, the colt stopped his frolicking and turned towards C., ears pricked forward, tail flicking, full of interest. He took a few steps towards my son who was still walking away when I said, "Look, C! He wants to see you!" C. turned back towards the colt and walked towards the little fellow, who stood very still and seemed to welcome C.'s interest. He and C. remind me of each other. Long legs and all.
This is a nice little vid that a horse owner over on YouTube took of adding a new horse to the herd. When we added thoroughbred Shilo to our then herd of three, which consisted of an Arabian mare, and Andalusian mare, and an elderly POA gelding, we were not prepared for the sparks that flew! We introduced the thoroughbred to our friendly and easy-going Andalusian, who had lived by herself for so many years before I bought her that she loves everyone. That one was easy. Then we introduced the beautiful thoroughbred mare to our old POA gelding. He arched his neck and made throaty huffa huffa sounds, very happy to meet her. I think it was love at first sight, because over the year we had her, they became fast friends.
Then we unleashed my husband's Polish Arabian mare. She flew at the poor new horse like an attack dog. Ears pinned, hindquarters churning, tail flying, sparks shooting out of her eyeballs. I never thought I'd describe an Arabian horse as a pit bull. But that's exactly what the hot blooded girl transformed into.
After that, we became smarter about the introductions and kept the new horse separate on the other side of the fence for at least a week or two, so the first meeting in the pasture wasn't quite so dramatic.
It's grit versus glamour this week in Ridgely/Corrao, as rodeo barrel racer Cowgirl Jen trades families with luxury-living hair stylist Kim on Wife Swap.
Yes, I admit it. I watched this week's Wife Swap.
And now you know that I have a tendency towards some low-brow television. We sat around the den laughing at the hairstylist who screeched at the sight of some horse manure in the barn aisle. But, I’ve got to give the lady credit, she did shovel horse shit and even rode a horse for the first time in her life, bareback.
If I signed up for Wife Swap, I'd like to be sent to a house of a wealthy socialite woman who spends all of her time hot tubbing at the spa, working with a personal trainer, getting her nails done, having her hair and makeup done, having a daily massage, shopping at fabulous fashionable stores, and dining out. It would be like a mini-vacation. I suspect that you'd have to tell the producers that you were radically opposed to that sort of thing in order for them to send you to such a place. I'd probably wind up on a hawg farm in Arkansas ...
From Channel4.com Jen Ridgely and her husband Randy, a professional bull rider and steer wrestler, keep tight reins on their two young children, who do chores around the ranch when they're not in school. In their family rugged independence, hard work, competitiveness and frugality take precedence over romance and leisure time. The Corrao family, meanwhile, are bred on "la dolce vita". The children do just about whatever they want around the house, set their own bedtimes and even write on the walls. Can hairdresser Kim cope with shoveling horse manure morning, noon and night? What does "Cowgirl Jen" make of the lack of discipline and structure in the Corrao house?
The mare in question was known around town as the Hell Bitch. Call had bought her in Mexico, from some caballeros who claimed to have killed an Indian to get her -- a Comanche, they said.
~ Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry
The Hell Bitch has got to be one of my all-time favorite literary horses. She could canter for miles without getting tired. I remember reading in Lonesome Dove that she actually bit a pretty good chunk out of some poor, unsuspecting soul the moment he turned his back on her.
I'm actually glad that I've never had a horse like her, but she always stands out in my mind as one of the most fascinating horses I've read about.
With all of this snow and the unusually cold and bitter weather we've experienced in the aftermath of our epic snowstorm, I'm keeping a good eye on my horses' water intake. For some reason, they don't seem to drink as much when it's really cold. But I can tell you for certain that they are digging into that free choice hay out there in the feeder, and that their food intake hasn't slowed down. In fact, I think they're eating a little more.
One of the reasons I like to feed free choice hay is that it allows my horses to graze throughout the day, more as nature intended. And it keeps their delicate systems moving, which can help reduce their chances for colic.
A colleague of mine raises miniature horses, and she's going through a colic with one of her tiny mares right now. She thinks the reason behind it is that the mare hasn't been drinking enough water in this highly unusual blast of weather.
My son's horse Pinon is on my shit list today. While she's as gentle and as solid a horse as I've seen, great with kids, she can't stand the tenacious heeler pups. In that regard, she is all mare, testy and irritable. For weeks now, she's been pinning her ears, shaking her head, giving them the curt flick of a single nostril in their direction. And those guileless pups don't have a clue.
I've spent a lot of time teaching them that they can't chase the horses. That the horses are mine. Not theirs. And they are not to chase, bark at or in any way taunt my horses. And they've been doing great. I think they have exemplary behavior around the horses. But that's no guarantee.
Poor Red Dawg was simply trotting behind Pinon yesterday when whack. That right hind hoof shot out with deadly lightning precision and got that poor pup right in the head. She flew through the air, landed in a soft heap of paws and fur and puppy fat, woofing piteously in pain and shock. I rushed across the pasture at the little heeler, expecting her to be dead when I fell to my knees to help her. But as I tried to carry her back up to the house, the Red Dawg wriggled out of my arms and trotted up herself. Now she did sleep quite a while yesterday in the house on her cushy bed in the living room. And she looks a little beat up. Just a little like Rocky Balboa after a prize fight.
As far as I can tell, she's OK. I hate it when this happens. But I haven't lost a dog to a horse kick. Yet. Horses and dogs can be a wonderful, and a sometimes trying, combination. Then add the kids who love the dogs into the mix.
Dennis rescued us! With a lot of help from Digger, the Kubota Tractor. And it only took two days to get from the barn to the road and then back up our quarter of a mile long drive. Now we have to dig out the woodpile and try to do some shoveling around the house, which is pretty buried.
We're not prepared for this type of thing here in New Mexico, you have to understand. Usually, we get a really good snow, and then at my elevation (7,000 feet), once the sun comes out, it all melts away, leaving a nice white blanket of snow for me to admire from a distance on the Pecos Mountains or the Sangre de Cristos. Frankly, I prefer sitting on my front deck all wrapped up in my woolies, sipping a hot cup of coffee, warm sun on my face, admiring the white stuff from afar.
My husband's Polish Arabian mare Miss Morningstar did not seem to enjoy the snow, especially as it was up to her little pot belly (or are those her wonderfully "sprung" ribs?) before it began to melt a bit and settle. She seemed rather indignant about the whole thing, frankly. Pawing at the cold white stuff with a diminutive front hoof, snorting, twitching her ears, rolling her eyes.
This is the same mare who sidewinds down a mountain trail, lifting each hoof way high like a cat to avoid puddles after a good rain or hailstorm, steam billowing from her aristocratic nostrils.
Well, I wrote SOS in the snow drifts, big enough to be seen from that Apache Tomahawk (whatever) helicopter that I was hoping the government would send over to drop me a case of Skoal in our down-to-the-last-quarter-of-a-can and no-way-to-get-to-the-store hour of need, but it never happened. Apparently, they had more important matters to attend to during our blizzard.
I'm a pretty good citizen, I think, with a fairly decent emergency preparedness plan. You won't catch me starving to death or perishing from lack of water in a natural disaster. After all, we New Mexicans are a hardy, can-do, stand-on-our-own-two-feet breed. But from now on, my emergency preparedness plan will include several rolls of ... Skoal. (For Dennis, not me.) Secreted away for just such Acts of God. Now where's a good hiding place?
One of the things that I enjoy about Australian cattle dogs is their unwavering, bright eyed, and bobtailed sense of adventure about every single day they are alive. As far as they're concerned, this 3 feet of snow that's way above their heads is yet another delicious episode in a life full of exploration and wonder. And this is the first winter for these two. I'd say they've had quite an introduction to the idea of snow.
Once the sun sets at the end of the day and all of the exploration is over, they tumble together in a furry heap of deep contented dreaming in front of the wood-burning stove.
