Same old story.

William called me from England to tell me he was calling from the next decade. I asked him what it was like in the future and he told me that food come in pill form, cars fly and something about 'those damn dirty apes'. lol, that's me lad!

Yesterday I went to see my doctor in Spokane. The sarcoidosis has still got me in it's evil grip. Doc was crazy enough to suggest I give myself shots of some poison to suppress my over active immune system. I told him that wasn't going to happen.

After wards to cheer myself up we paid a visit to Northwest Seed and Pet on Sprague Ave. It's like a trip to the zoo for me.

The huge tortoise wanders around the store. I think his name is Nelson if I remember correctly. He looked like he was on a mission and so I followed him.


Sure enough, he was looking for a friend of his. He must have been asking him to have a race.


But the silly rabbit spotted my camera and came over to pose and just generally show off. He had fur like soft suede. I know this because I was trying to pushing him away from the camera.


While the rabbit was hamming it up the tortoise was off like a bolt of lightening.


...and like always he won the race.

This monster lives in the pet shop and guess who tried to poke her finger into the cage?


Here's the Meerkats of the reptile world.


Gertrude keeps an eye on things.


Feeling a bit guilty about just going in there to harass the animals, I bought some seed. Their gardening section is enough to get rid of a gardeners winter blues for sure.

C.S.I. Ranch Style

Crime Scene Investigation down on the farm.
The case of the missing halter.

The victim.


Wildairo was found wandering around butt naked and disheveled. Closer inspection revealed he was missing his break-away halter.

I was hot on the case. Wildairo followed me around acting really crazy,' probably traumatized by his ordeal,' I first thought. Several times he raced off bucking (with sound effects) and galloping about like he'd gone insane. One time he almost slammed into the rock wall. (Note to self; change their feed).

The Crime Scene.


One broken break-away underneath a well worn scratching tree.


The Evidence.


Conclusion.
Wildairo was innocently having a good scratch on this old dead tree, when it leaped out and grabbed his halter. Lucky for us Wildairo was wearing a break-away halter so he was able to run like hell and leave the tree with it's prize. Break-away halters really do break-away.

Show down at the O.K. Corral.

Saturday I thought I'd just walk over to the corrals to give the mustangs some grain with their wormer in it. (I could use the paste now but I bought them the worming nuggets out of habit).

I didn't intend to spend much time with them and didn't even put my gloves or hat on. But it ended up being a really incredible training session with Echo.

It went down like this; I walk in the corrals with their medicated grain, "Say bye bye to your worm friends boys"! I was startled at the sight of Echo. He had dozens of tumbleweed bits caught in his mane. They were sticking out of both sides and looked like they were matting his lovely mane! I'm really into long flowing manes and quickly sprang into action to weed Echo. In my eagerness to get the weeds out I forgot what a little psycho he is. Soon as I started pulling the first weed he (surprise surprise) bolted.

I got really mad. I have noticed whenever I get mad at him we make a lot of progress.

I went after him, shutting gates behind me and trapping him in the alley. I cornered him, then soon as he turned to face me I put my arms out so he couldn't race by me then I grabbed his halter in both hands. He did this huge snort in my face and I told him I was going to slap the snort right out of him if he didn't hold still. I really thought he was going to go over the top of me and I was going to get hurt, but I really didn't care because I was so mad. No horse of mine is going to look like he was dragged through a hedge backwards!

Echo put up a big struggle but he was very careful not to step on me. Every time he tried to run backwards I yanked on his halter and told him "Whoa". Wow, talk about a desensitizing session! I had to tug on his mane to get all the weeds out and got every little bit out. For good measure I slapped him with my hand all over as far back as I could reach without letting go of his halter. The first slap made him leap but then he realized it didn't hurt and he stopped reacting to it. After wards he seemed fonder of me.

Today, Sunday I raked up tumbleweeds in and around the corrals and burned them. I put Echo's lead rope on and led him through his corral gate and down the alley! He put the brakes on going around the corner into the big corral so I turned him around in the alley and led him back into his corral. We did that three times then he decided to let me lead him through all the gates. He was such a good boy. Training Echo is one step forward and ten steps back sometimes.

I know what I need to do and that is to be very firm with him and desensitize him with every thing I can think of. He's a really good horse and has such a sweet nature.

This photo was taken about a month ago but it shows that worried look he gets that makes me just want to give him a cuddle.

So cold!

Over the weekend we had a very cold wind. The fat and fluffy mustang boys got full rations of grain and extra hay. The wind was blowing from the east, which doesn't happen very often and the metal building would have provided perfect shelter, but Echo wasn't going to go anywhere near a building in such high winds. I put his hay and grain in the door way so he could at least get some protection. Wildairo thought the rock wall was just fine and dandy to stop the wind. He also had a log wind break out in the pasture.

Here's a picture Brad took with his cell phone of the horses a few days before when the weather was much nicer. They like to sleep near each other.


The easterly wind blew piles of tumbleweeds into the corrals. I spotted Echo playing with them the next morning and also tasting them. He left some hay in his tub so I wonder if he ate a lot of them because he wasn't very hungry. I've heard that mustangs will eat sagebrush sometimes.. yuck! It sure smell nice though.

Monday and Tuesday we had no wind but it was bitter cold. Brad had to go somewhere three hours from here and he had to stay there overnight, which meant I was rancher girl for awhile. Everything was running ship shape until I walked up to Echo. He had half a tumbleweed caught in his mane and looked a bit silly. Soon as he saw me he bolted. I was wondering what his deal was then it occurred to me, I was wearing a hat, new coat and big black gloves.. I had become the dreaded stranger danger.

He was snorting and racing about stupidly in his tumbleweed hat. He'd canter around the corral, take off down the alley and race around the big corral, then back again. I just followed trying to talk some sense into him. He ran up to Wildairo who was enjoying his breakfast, "Help me, help me, it's after me and it's using our mum's voice". Wildairo told him he was an idiot and turned his back to him in disgust.

I was noticing the hard frozen ground was giving his hooves a lovely trim. His hooves are very thin and trim down very easy, unlike Wildairo's which are almost as hard as our basalt rock. I'd plod behind him as he went from one corral to the other and the funny thing is he lapped me. I was still making my way up the alley and he was racing back down and skidded to a halt when he saw me. This struck me as funny and I just started laughing. He was like, "mum that is you"! He started rubbing his breathing holes all over my face and pulling my hat with his lips. He also was holding my hair, that was sticking out under my hat, in his mouth like he wanted to be reassured it was really my hair under the hat. I only had one baby carrot for him because I had given Wildairo the rest. Wildairo didn't care that I was dressed differently.

It was -6 degrees F (minus 21 degrees C) that night and I was hoping that the power wouldn't go off because I would have been in trouble without Brad here to get things going again.

I watched the documentary called 'The Wild Horse Redemption' on the Sundance channel. It is about a prison in Colorado that has a wild horse training program. The prisoners in the training program each have 90 days to train a wild horse.


It was very interesting to watch. There was one horse called Samson who was being very difficult, but his trainer finally did get to ride him. It's a shame because they said he had a sore hoof and put him into long term holding for the rest of his days. I really loved a dark bay they had trained and adopted to someone. It showed the Border patrol agents from Washington State there picking out their horses from the ones who had been trained.

When the trainers from the prison went into the wild horse pens to pick out suitable horses to train they were mostly looking for big horses because they said that would make the horse more adoptable to the public. I often wonder if they also look at the temperaments and don't even bother with the more reactive horses like Echo. Echo also happens to be rather small so he may have been out of luck if he'd been there.

The Emerald City; Part Two.

Another reason I love Seattle is because they have bears guarding their sweet shops.


And fishermen and other sea faring types are everywhere.



I love Seattle because they seem to be sympathetic to horse and donkey difficulties.


Brad being a farmer/rancher type had to jump in an lend a hand.


I don't really care for this Christopher Columbus statue...


..or his cod piece speedo thong thing.....(I warned you it was Seattle through my eyes)...


While I'm complaining, I hate the Alaska Viaduct. It's ugly, noisy and dangerous in earthquakes. I hear they are going to take it down and build a tunnel for the traffic.


This is pretty.


Here's someone who's not sleepless in Seattle. He/she wakes up to a lovely view of Elliot Bay.


I always visit Ye Olde Curiosity Shop.


I like looking at the dead dudes and other curious oddities.




Sylvester, about 45, was found nude, half buried and mummified in the Arizona desert near Gila Bend by cowboys. It seems the poor fellow had been shot in the head and it had healed over.


Life was pretty rough back then..almost as rough is it now for Americans now without decent health care. Brad's grandfather was a settler here about 120 years ago and he writes about a young man here, who was killed for stealing cattle and his body was left for the coyotes to deal with.

I was missing William. He always enjoys Ye Olde Curiosity Shop. And right then William called all the way from Plymouth, England (where we said good riddance to some radical religious group, lol). Here I was on the Pacific coast and I'm talking to my boy on the other side of the Atlantic. William is doing very well at Plymouth University. He'd like to stay another year at least. Because of Facebook, this blog, email and cell phones, we are in contact just like he was at CWU...only difference is his room stays tidy all the time. He will be spending Christmas at my mum and dads house in Bedford which is 50 miles north of London.

William told me something incredible; he shares a house with four other students and one of them, Helen, told him her friend has been to Odessa. He thought it may have been Odessa Texas because our Odessa is in the middle of nowhere without even a traffic light.. population 900 people. Well, it turns out Helen's friend is the cousin of someone Will knows quiet well in Odessa. She told him before she had cousins in England! Isn't it a small world?

Anyway the nice chat with William took my mind off one of my biggest fears.....ending up naked and dried out in a glass case in Ye Olde Curiosity Shop with people gawking at me and taking my picture. I can hear them now, "well she was certainly well fed but what the hell is up with her hair"?