A new look.

I have a new look for my blog. I couldn't decide what picture to use so I went with a mess of them. I show Echo doing his little 'step up routine' and just looking his handsome self. (Bobby managed to get in there somehow). I show Wildairo sucking down a cold one, having a halter put on for the first time (beside the hard way by the BLM) and being generally humiliated.

It was very hard to do because the Blogger was acting up and wouldn't show me any pre-views and also our kitten, Tommy Two Tone, was trying to sleep on his back in my arms leaving me to awkwardly type with one hand. I finally put him out of the room and closed the door. When I went to check on him I found him trying to ride my bike only to discover his kitten legs were too short.



Silly kitten, bikes are for humans.

Last September I took our mystery chicks baby pictures. He was such a cute little chick.



Well he grew into a funny looking rooster. I hear him out there cockle dooing. Brad reported that when he went to let the chickens out the other morning he found the rooster, whom I named Jet Lag, chasing the hens and making a nuisance of himself. So when I managed to get going, I went out and grabbed him. Usually when the farmers wife grabs a chicken to bring in the house thing's get ugly pretty quick. Lucky for Jet Lag I'm not into that. We had ourselves a photo shoot.



His face is a little grubby but that's no excuse; he still has a face only his mother could love.



It looks like one of the hens whacked him over the head with something. He'll have to have his own pen so the hens can peacefully lay eggs.

Beautiful sights on Inauguration Day.

I watched the inauguration parade on Cspan because they seemed to have the best coverage. The Border Patrol riding their Mustangs went by far too quickly. I was so impressed with those horses, who were born completely wild, walking two a breast with bagpipes playing and the crowds cheering. I loved their nose bands! I was a bit disappointed the border patrol agents on the mustangs weren't wearing kilts, Scottish style.


The Border Patrol horses have proven that BLM Mustangs can be used like any other horses, while also having the advantage of being awesome trail horses and true friends.

I hope that seeing these beautiful horses walking so calmly in the parade will get more people interested in adopting them. I also think that this will help people become more aware of what is going on with the BLM and the wild horse herds.

When I adopted Wildairo last April there were Border Patrol agents at the adoption with their horses.



The horses were so calm and weren't even the least bit botherered with me approaching them on my crutches.

But the sweetest sight of all yesterday was George W Bush getting on that helicopter and getting the hell out of Washington! Wildairo said, if he had some shoes he would have thrown them at him! That's my boy.

I have the audacity to hope today.

And I feel like quoting Martin Luther King:

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man.

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

Here is a picture of my sons taken a few years ago. William, 20, is in his second year at Central Washington University. Keegan, 33, is a airman (TecSgt) at a marine base in Iraq.



I have the audacity to hope that today is the start of better days for America and for the world and the children we leave it too.

I can't wait to see our local Mustangs in the inauguration parade!!!

A nice weekend.

I had a nice surprise! Here's William with Tommy Two Tone on Friday!



I didn't expect William home till spring break but he came home to help his dad bolt his pick-up engine back in. He has no classes Monday because it's Martin Luther King day, so he is here for three days!

I helped Brad get the engine back in but I was too short to reach all the bolts. William did a much better job.

Here's Brad standing on the pick-up as we lowered the engine back in.



Our girl cat, Muffin, likes to sit in different places and have her photo taken.

Here she is trying to look pretty somewhere she shouldn't be.



Then she had the cheek to have a kip (nap) on my saddle.



I got her off and got on myself to see how my ankle was when I stood in the stirrups. It felt OK. 100% better than before it was replaced. My knees are very swollen/painful from the sarcoidosis and felt really useless for riding. Also I need to re-build the bone in my spine before I will risk riding again. I would love to be able to ride again and the thought of riding really inspires me to hurry up and get better. I'm taking low dose chemo meds to suppress my immune system and also some steroids. My immune system is attacking me and I don't like it at all.

Bobby was shouting (barking) at a big bird up on the bluff and trying to get my attention. I thought it was the Bald Eagle who has been casing the joint, but looking through my binoculars, I saw it was only one of the local Red Tail Hawks. Bobby is always on the look out for chicken eating birds.



When I went out to see what all the ruckus was about, I discovered a water pipe had burst near the old root cellar and water was going everywhere. Maybe that was what Bobby was really trying to tell me, lol.

Our rooster is going "cock-a-doodle-doo" in the mornings and even at night when I call the cats in. He must think he's died and gone to heaven living with all those beautiful girls.

Perfect weather for horses.

Wednesday was sunny with no wind at all and that always makes for nice horse weather.

Wildairo was feeling like his old self now that Foxsun (background) has been exiled.



Wildairo's BLM wild horse brand looks really funny with his winter coat.



He was really back to his old horrible self. He'll do anything to get attention. As I walked away, he bit the metal gate as hard as he could because he knows that always gets my attention.



Then he pounded the gate and shoved his big clod hopper hoof through it. I gave him some kisses and he seemed to settle down a bit.



I noticed Foxsun shares his hay with the cows yet he won't share with Wildairo.

I took Bobby in with me to visit Echo. It was only the second time she's been in his corral. She was very impressed with all the poop and volunteered to clean it up.



I offered a baby carrot to Echo but he was trying to convince himself that as a card carrying wild horse he didn't eat root vegetables.



Bobby reminded him how it was done.



He thought he'd have just a little sniff.



But he couldn't deny his love for carrots.



I thought I'd get another snap of Echo and Bobby together because they get along so well.



Then Echo tickled Bobby and made her laugh.



I think you can tell from these photos that Echo hasn't got a mean bone in his body.

The exiled old Morgan horse ran around to the other corral as I was leaving and begged for carrots. I'd saved some for him.

Fun times in the hen house.

Foxsun won't let me get near Wildairo so I opened the gate and let Foxsun out.




Wildairo watched him go. The pasture I turned Fox into is over 40 acres of slopes and sagebrush and so the old boy will be kept busy looking for his old cow wife.

I was able to give Wildairo some attention. He still puts his ears flat back as he approaches me. This is how he approached his wild herd mates as well. He doesn't seem to mean any harm in it, but I don't like it at all.

Echo is hanging onto his 'wild horse card' card for long as he can. He has taken a big step back this winter.

The corrals are a mess. The water drains away from them but the poop is frozen to the ground and needs a tractor to scrape them clean. I look forward to getting all the horses out in the pastures. I think I could turn Wildairo out with no problems but Echo is a different story. It would take the BLM with helicopters to recapture him I think.

My search for signs of Spring continues. We drilled holes in some basalt rocks and I put soil and seeds in them. This little viola survived under the snow.







Last September my order of Rhode Island chicks arrived. The hatchery included a free rare exotic chick with my order. We made many a guess what kind of a chick it was. William said he thought it was an owl which I thought was very funny and would have been good for return business for the hatchery. Well, I've had a few bad dreams about what it could be and as I made may gingerly across the still patchy ice to see the hens for the first time for over a month (Brad feeds them) I saw my worst nightmare had been realized. The mystery hen was a.............................


Brace yourselves..........



The worst kind of bird for a lacto ovo vegetarian like myself, who only wanted a small squadron on laying hens.


!!!!!!!!
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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!





A ROOSTER!





Yes, that's him, the fancy feller surrounded by his women folk.

About 20+ years ago I asked my vet if he could neuter a rooster and he said. "If you bring him in here I'll turn him into chicken stew". He's the same vet who said, on hearing I had adopted a mustang, told me I needed a mustang as much as I needed a hole in the head. Besides his seeming hatred for animals, he's a very good vet.

Soon as I left Wildairo went berserk as he pined for his antagonist, Foxsun.

Beauty and horror of what lies beneath.

In my last entry the farm looked pristine under a deep blanket of snow. Since then the temperatures have soared to a high of 48 degrees F from a low of minus 18 F.

My Gurney's seed and plant catalog arrived and looking through it I started to feel the stirrings of spring fever, so I grabbed my camera and went off in search of signs of spring. What I found was that nature had been thriving very well under the deep snow.

I don't rake leaves or cut back plants in the autumn because I hope maybe the debris will help protect the plants through the winter. Here is a Columbine with new growth at it's base.



I can't remember the name of this ground cover plant. It has pretty pink flowers.



A rose.



Starlings are great imitators and they must have been feeling a bit of spring fever as well because one of them was imitating a Meadow Lark and it felt even more like spring to me then.


I spotted some grass and had to stop and take a picture. The cows spotted some too because they left the feeder and headed out to graze.



I love nature, it inspires me. I love how plants and animals find a way to survive no matter how bleak things seem. A tomato seed somehow got in one of my house plant pots and even though it was lanky, scrawny and under-watered, it found a way to flourish and blossom.



This is Crab Creek (looking west) about a mile above our place. This little creek will be a lot different when the melt water from the north gets in to it. Then it becomes 'The Mighty Crab'.



A few years ago during the thaw, Crab Creek was really deep and had backed up by the willows enough that it went through an old culvert and water was rushing on both sides of the levy. I drove my jeep to take a look at it and when I was backing back out, I drove too close to the side the ditch is on. The mud was very mushy on top of the still frozen ground and the jeep slid sideways down the ditch bank. It slid till mud had built up high on the sides of the tires which stopped me from going right into the ditch, which was full to the brim with rushing water. I had to climb out of the passenger door. I thought little jeep was going to roll right in the drink.

Brad, who never chided me, pulled the jeep a bit with his pick-up but the back end swung around and was in danger of going in. He had to anchor the back end of the jeep to a tractor. I felt very silly but what's life without a few misadventures.

Now for the horror of what was under the snow!

Frozen poopsicles everywhere. What a mess! Poor horses. I noticed Echo had still managed to keep his little sleeping area clean.



Here's a close up of the funny look on his face. Looks like he's having a thinky thought.

A snowy farm in eastern Washington State.

Yesterday Brad had to clear snow.



He noticed where the snow was drifted and deep the ground wasn't frozen.

Here are some of the girls. Another two months and they start having their calves.



This is Levin (named after her grandmother #11) on the right with her adult daughter, Pebbles.



A Morgan and a Mustang. Foxsun on the left, and Wildairo wait for their hay.



Foxsun will be 23 in April and Wildairo will be a three year old this year. He has become very domesticated and fits right in. He still seems to treat me very much differently than he does Brad. I won't be doing anything with him till the weather warms up. I'm useless in the cold weather.



Here's is wild herd mate, Echo, also three years old this year.



Echo and Wildairo were captured on the same day, August the third 2007, in southern Oregon. Beaty's Butte. They still remain complete opposites in personality's. Wildairo needs and respects a firm hand. He hasn't attempted to bit or kick me since the first few weeks he was here, but Brad says he still gives him a warning now and again. I suspect a lot of this is because Brad isn't really in tune with the ways of the horse and he's very likely to approach a horse wrong or pet too rough. ie: Brad said Wildairo didn't like it when he was removing ice off his back but Foxsun was fine with it. If I had been pulling the ice off Wildairo's back I'd have slowly got him used to it. I think the problem is we have had a fool proof horse (Foxsun) for 20 years and take it for granted a horse will be fine with anything. I have found Wildairo very willing to learn new thing's and is full of curiosity. He has tried so hard to be a good boy and fit in. He loves beer and will eat anything. His big problem is he's afraid of strangers.

Echo is gentle, sweet and very nervous. He's curious but I have to be very calm around him. At first I could touch his face but it got too scary for him. Not once has he put his ears back at me, tried or threatened to kick me. He loves to eat baby carrots out of my hand. A few times, while I have been distracted he has put my fingers in his mouth thinking they were carrots and didn't bite. When all is tranquil in his little world he gives me little kisses on my face. He's a very gentle soul. Once he gets used to humans touching him he's going to be fine. His big problem is he's very spooky. He's scared of his own tail!

Empty nest again.

We took our youngest son, William, back to Central Washington University in Ellensburg yesterday. Our oldest son, Keegan is in Iraq. I feel a rant coming on, so I won't dwell on that subject.

William gave Tommy Two Tone one final hug till Spring break.



As we left we spotted a cosy scene of some deer sleeping around my old garden wall but I missed the shot and was sorry to see them leave.



Ellensburg is about 100 miles away. We were in a hurry to beat the latest snow storm. I'm going to miss William he's a lot of fun and helps with the chores.



Soon as we got to Ellensburg the snow started and we returned in the storm instead of in front of it.

This is Ephrata the county seat of Grant county and is about 50 miles from where we live. I hated to leave the bright lights of little down town Ephrata and head into the vast snowy emptiness.



For awhile there were other tracks on the road.



But then we were alone and the snow started to drift.



On the county road that runs through our place, there were many deer milling about we had to drive carefully through them. There's plenty for them to eat along the ditch banks and in a pinch they can snack on the hay stacks.

A new year and new stuff.

Here's my new Christmas kitten, Tommy Two Tone.



I spotted him the day after Christmas in the feed store. Brad gave him the old 'scratch behind the ear' test to see if he would purr. He passed the test with flying colors. I noticed he didn't use his claws to hang on to me, but to be double sure that he was of sound mind and character, I took him over to the little waterfall in a fish tank to gage his reaction. He wanted to play in the water. Brad said, "lets get him"! William asked if it wasn't just an impulse buy and I assured him it was. That's why kittens are so cute after all. I also added that Wildairo was acquired on impulse just the same as he was.

On the way home T2T lay on his back on my lap playing. Totally relaxed. At home the two Airedales trotted up to see him and he buried his kitten fangs into Bobby's huge nose and his claws deep into her face fur. After that the dogs would avert their noses away him when he walked by. By the next day everyone was friends. He's got grumpy old Patches, who's totally devoid of personality, playing tag. Tommy Two Tone comes when he's called and is a wonderful lap kitten.

Talking about grumpy old men playing; the two mustang colts love to buck and have mad half hours. This morning Foxsun was fully involved in the mustang games. He was an only horse for 20 years and hasn't played with other horses since his childhood in Wyoming. Cows don't play much so it's been a long time since he played 'stand on your hind legs and box'.

One of the local coyotes came by the other morning to have an apple snack. He dug through the snow under the apple tree to get some old apples to eat.





After he left his calling card he trotted across the frozen snow in search of more food.





Rodents tunnel through the snow and the keen ears of the coyote can hear their little happy squeaks, making them easy prey for our local little wolves even in the winter time.

New years eve I had to go for yet another doctors appointment in Spokane and I took some photos of highway 28. It's a lonely stretch of road through the wheat fields between Odessa and Davenport almost 50 miles away. It was closed a few days ago because of the drifts.





We passed the snow plough because 'little jeep don't need no stinking snow plough'.

While in Spokane I saw a hard working mustang clearing snow so I took a picture. They even put a picture on it of it of a horse that looks like Echo, acting up.



I got a new camera for Christmas, so I'll donate my old pre-turn of the century camera and the backpack I use to carry it in, to the local museum.