I heart Echo.

Last night I wanted to murder Echo. I went to visit him and he acted like he'd never seen a human being before in his life. It might have been because I was wearing a straw hat and not my BLM baseball cap like I was the day before. I even checked to see if I was wearing odd shoes again like I did one day last week...didn't discover it till bedtime lol.

Tonight, after dinner Brad suggested doing some mustang wrangling because he knew how disappointed I'd been yesterday. We did our usual routine of pushing him towards the little pen and he gets easier very time we do it. Brad was doing bump ups with him in the little pen and I was closing gates and I heard Brad say, "look at this"!







As a reward we gave him some apples and carrots and let him go and eat his hay.

Today was a good day.

Echo has a major break through.

Sunday Brad put Echo behind the gate again for me. There was no melt down this time. He stood in the correct position very tense yet still while Brad closed the gate. Brad left me alone with him. Echo was scared stiff at first but relaxed after I went all over his body with my hands. I was looking for his special spot that every horse has, the spot that makes them stretch their neck out and go all gooey. I tickled his belly button, which is Foxsun's spot, and his withers, which is Wildairo's, but no go. He liked it right enough but I wasn't getting him to turn into a puddle of appreciation. I ran my hands down his legs and he was OK with it. The flies were bad and so I put fly repellent on a rag but it didn't do much good so I ended up squirting him under his belly which was fly central. He was scared but he kept his cool.

He kept his head turned away and high up out of reach and so I had to put the rope around his neck again. He gave a little jump when the rope dangled down both sides of his neck but he brought himself under control. You can see where he lost some bark last week when he panicked when Brad tried to close the gate. It growing hair back already, but notice his expression is so different than it was last week.


I pulled his head towards me with the rope and took it in both hands like I did last week. He totally relaxed again. That's when I discovered his special spot! Echo's special spot is his mouth and nose. He went all gooey when I rubbed this lips and nose. He stretched out his neck and half closed his eyes. It was the last time I had to pull his head towards me with the rope!

Echo loves his mouth being played with so much he wanted me to play about with his gum's and tongue! I don't know about you but putting my fingers inside a horses mouth feels weird.


He didn't attempt to bit down on my fingers....but still. What a funny little horse! I was able to walk away and walk right back up and touch his head again. AWESOME! Before when I've had him trapped he wasn't mentally with me. His body was there but not his mind. Maybe he was having an out of body experience and galloping with his mum and dad and all the cousins once again across the sage brush at Beaty'e Butte. But this time he was with me and interacting.

I decided not to put his halter on while he was trapped but to keep building trust. I opened the gate and walked back to him and stroked his head. He stood like a good boy. He even let me wrap my arm around his head and rest it on my shoulder.

After awhile he thought he heard something behind him and ran back to the big corral giving little snorts out of habit. He was very careful not to even come close to stepping on me.

In the big corral I walked up to him reached out and he ran away. For a moment I regretted not putting his halter on while I had the chance. But I had a secret weapon. I popped a chunk of apple in his mouth and when he was in apple wonderland I took his head in my hands and he relaxed. That was the first time he's let me really touch him in the open. It was his choice to let me. After while he scared himself again and squirted off but I managed to approach and touch him a few more times. Most of the time, instead of letting me touch him, he'd run backwards snorting with a very comically confused look on his face. Soon as I told him to 'step up' he'd return to me. Echo is really reluctant to give up his wild horse card.

Maybe he thinks he's like a captured WW2 solider in a prisoner of war camp;

It is the Duty of Every Officer (wild horse) to Attempt to Escape...

What fun Echo turned out to be.

Blame it on Canada.

The Canadians have a big forest fire in the Kelowna British Columbia area. I know it's a bad one because even though we're over 200 miles south of them we had the smoke here on Thursday night.



Kelowna is in the Okanagan Valley and the smoke travels south down the valley and makes it's way into our Crab Creek valley. It got so smokey it was hard to believe the source was so far away. It was enough to make us say things in our very best Canadian accents "Put out the fires, aye". I love the way they say 'out'. I'm British so I don't have an accent, very one else does, lol.

Echo is being a little darling and ready for his halter. We have been working on our invisible halter training again. I walk beside him and tell him to come and he follows my hand. He's just trying to bump it for a carrot but also he gets "good boy" as a reward and that makes him very happy.

Echo reasoned that when he 'bumps up' he can get a carrot and so he thought what would happen if he just kept bumping repeatedly even though he already had carrots in his mouth? One pound of baby carrots later Echo had his answer. I was sitting in my lawn chair at the time. Echo loves it when I'm in my chair because I'm really little and low to the ground. He did that thing again where he mauls my knee caps with his top lip and it drives me crazy. I have very ticklish knees.

Echo's big day.

Sunday was Echo's big day. It was the day I intended to take away his wild horse card. Brad had put an extension on the wing gate so it would lock in place trapping the little stinker behind it.

I asked Brad to be the one to secure him this time. I've been doing it on my own but I knew Echo would loose his cool when we had to go to his rear to lock the gate and I wouldn't have the strength to hold him in.

First we had to get him into the small pen. He didn't want to turn his back on Brad to walk up the alley. He kept walking up to Brad to do his bump ups. I felt so sad for him because he was trying so hard to show Brad what a good boy he was and hoping Brad would be happy enough with that so he wouldn't have to go in the little pen.



Brad got him in the right position in the pen....



.. but just like I thought Echo had a melt down when Brad attempted to shut the gate behind him.



There was just a cloud of dust.......but I saw something I recognized in it.


He scrapped some of his bark off and had a bald spot on his forehead. Brad got him turn in the right direction and secured the gate. Echo calmed right down.

This was the start of five hours of work!

Brad touched his body for the first time.


It took ages for him to stop tensing up when we touched him. I used my hands most of the time. I gave him some wonderful wither rubbings and itchy spot searches. He's still tense in this picture.



We did plenty of 'walk aways' to make him think and look for us. He looked for us. I wouldn't call it longing looks, but he looked.


I went after itchy spots on his under carriage that are almost impossible to reach in the natural world. He LIKED. But being a really super cool wild horse he didn't let it show too much.



Wildairo was out guarding the fort by plodding around on high alert because he heard some very distant human voices in the evening air. He came in for the night but really wanted to be out again.


Echo was very OK with me touching him all over his back and hind legs! No attempt to kick or even any anxiety. He actually munched the carrot he'd be holding on to when I reached his tail. I used a soft rubber brush to groom him which he enjoyed.



I couldn't get near his head because he'd turn it as far as away from me as he could. I gently rubbed the back of his ears and poll with the leather loop on the end of my crop till he seemed to relaxed, then I attached a soft rope to it and put the rope slowly and gently all over his back and down his sides. Echo didn't mind in the least. The only time he gave a little jump was when the rope swung up and touched him under his head somewhere. I put the rope around his neck using my crop.



I moved the rope further up hill near his ears and managed to get some control over his head. Once again Echo kept very calm.

I pulled his head near enough to me that I could reach out and take it in both hands. It took some time but he totally relaxed and enjoyed having his face stroked and kissed. It was dark and he just sighed and let his head get heavy in my hands. I walked away many times returning to pick up the rope and take his head.

We had a disappointment, when Brad came back after being gone for about an hour... Echo snorted at him and tensed up even though a short while before he'd been totally relaxed with Brad being close to him.

I could have put a halter on him but I decided to wait till the next session.

It was dark and about 10:30 pm when we released him. He stood in the dark looking at us. I approached him just like we'd been doing and reached for him, but because he wasn't in exactly the same place soon as he felt my hand it was like he'd had an electric shock and he raced into the big pen. Being very pleased with himself he did his wild mustang dance in the starlight.

Yep, he's still got his wild horse card... and part of me is glad he's still a spirited little mustang.

The next step is to get him back in the little pen, get a halter and long drag rope on him, then let him race back into the big pen, pick up the drag rope and take the decision to act silly away from him. It seems when choices are taken away from him he calms right down. He needs a leader/boss.

Footnote;

Our high speed internet went no speed for a few days, so this post was slow to get published. Since Sunday Echo seems to be a lot more cozy and cheeky with me but backs away when I reach for him. He'll be fine once he has the halter and lead rope. He's a hard nut to crack alright, but so much fun.

The gate fright.

Saturday morning Wildairo was turned out and I forgot about him for hours. This is a good thing because I have been nervous about him being out, unable to relax and constantly looking for him with binoculars.

It was about mid afternoon when I remembered he was out so William, who's home for the weekend, and I went to put him away. Wildairo was already in. He was fast asleep next to the corral fence with Echo the other side of it. He gave William a very cheery greeting.

I went to check their water and that's when I had a bit of a shock. The gate between the two mustangs was open! It's the gate here on the right.


It's a very good sturdy gate. You have to slide these bolts in on this handle and it becomes securely locked. The two mustangs like to visit through this gate and Wildairo enjoys having a good old bum scratch on it.

I'm not going to name names, but some farmer didn't close it properly. I rarely use the gate because it's difficult to open and close so I go around. Wildairo must have pushed it till it hit the open gate the other side, which barely keeps it from coming all the way open. All it would have taken it Echo leaning on the gate his side and pushing it about half an inch and the two horses could have together with the powder river pasture gate wide open!

The gate between the pastures closed but they would have still have had about 40 acres of sage brush, rocks, hills and electric/barbed wire fence to have a little Beaty's Butte reunion gallop and maybe a play fight. See pictures to the left, lol. I think they are both very fence savvy and incredibly intelligent when it comes to self preservation but still the two of them together...........

Echo was very pleased to see William. He hadn't seen him for ages. I gave Will some carrots to give him.


Yes, that's what Echo looks like when he's happy to see someone. If he wasn't happy I couldn't have got him in the same picture!



Echo's little games are going to come to a swift end soon. Plans are in the works.



William got Echo to do some bump ups for his carrots. He's so cute it's going to be kind of sad to tear his wild horse card out of his hot little hooves, but someones got to do.

Back to the world.

My son Keegan is back in the world (old Vietnam era term).

He's in the US air force but served in Iraq with the navy and marines.


He visited oasis.


Saw a lot of very fine sand.


Played a lot of sports.


Saw a lot of wildlife.... and this little fellow.


Welcome back Keegan!

Muffin, Tommy and Max.

Muffin looked so pretty sitting on her favorite rock, I thought I'd take her picture.


But she was too hidden. There she is on her rock with Max slinking past..probably looking for his tail.


She got bored holding the pose.


A few weeks ago, after once more de-hairing the furniture, I put a box on one of the chairs to keep the cats off.

Or so I thought!


That's Muffin on the lower level and Tommy Two Tone 'upstairs'. Every time Muffin's tail sticks out, Tommy gives it a smack.

I'm mad! But should I be?

With great excitement I went to see how the online bidding was going for the latest BLM Mustang adoption. I went straight to my boy Banjo to see if he was getting a home. And I saw someone had a bid on him. OK I thought, so I won't feel the temptation to bid on him now. Then I went to see how some other horses were doing as far as getting homes. I kept seeing the same bidder bidding on them!!!!! So I went through the horses...the site crashed just after I got done with the Burns horses and into the first horses at Palomino Valley. The bidder had bid on seven different horses! I wasn't even half way through. The limit you can adopt is four in one year, right? The winning bidder can refuse the horse. They called me up and asked me if I wanted Echo....lol lol.

So this person is just putting bids on, jacking up the price and then is going to pick their favorite and or cheapest at the end. People like me (maybe there are no others ???) don't bid on a horse because we are just happy he found a home, but in the end he didn't!

This seems wrong to me. Opinions welcome.

Echo does his circles.

Echo has become relaxed enough with me in his corral that he will turn his back to me to eat.


These are the kind of visions that dance around in Echo's paranoid little brain..........

That very disturbing image is a lion riding a pony at a Chinese circus!

Soon as I approached he turned around......


I wanted to take pictures of Echo moving as a handsome three year old but he wanted me to take photos of his breathing holes.


Here are some pictures of Echo doing his circles.

Walk on!


Trot on!


Whoa and change directions.


Walk on!


Trot on!


He's just figured out I have him on auto pilot while I take pictures


He looks at me wanting to me tell him 'whoa'.


Whoa!

Phew!

What a good boy he is. We've been hanging out a lot together after dark. He likes to stand with me and lick my arms.

The BLM has him described as black. But you can clearly see he's a lovely Mahogany bay. Last year he was a Aubergine Bay (eggplant). I can't wait to see next years shade.

Wildairo has become a civilian.

Wildairo's title came in the mail. That means he is no longer a government owned horse. He belongs to me now and to celebrate I turned him loose again. He started foraging immediately so I left him alone and went home. Soon as I got home I noticed a big dust cloud in the general area of where he was, so I went back to check him. It seems like Wildairo doesn't like being left alone and I had to stay within sight of him to settle him down.


He wanted to stay close.


I was up on some rocks and he wanted to join me.


But he didn't know how....


When he started grazing again I went to work with Echo and after awhile, when Wildairo wasn't looking, I went home. He was very easy to get in again. He comes on the run.

Shortly after I got home the light outside became very strange.



See the sky has turned brown? That's dust.


Andy and Max know something big is happening.


Max looks up at the thunder.


The wind and the dust hit.. that's Montie in the dust... she's not very bright.


The light is changing. Montie barks at the thunder and dust.


The sun through the dust.


Then it rains.


And Montie is still barking.