Arlene's mustang adoption pick.

There are some very nice horses at the BLM's on line adoption with nobody bidding on them.

Let me present this lovely lady;

She is tag # 5616. Hails from the wild and wide open state of Nevada. She comes in a beautiful shade of sophisticated dark bay, has a kind intelligent face. Stands at a perfect 14.2 hands and is stout enough to carry even the most well fed among us. She is only three years so with some good grub she should grow a little more by next year. For a mere $125 you could have the experience of turning this wild frightened Mustang into your best friend.

Here she is strutting her stuff;

She has a lovely figure and knows it;

Right now her hobbies are avoiding humans and staying alive, but with time, love, empathy and 3.5 tons of apples, she would bond with you and change your life for the better. This month I have been a horse owner for 40 years, but never fully appreciated them until I tamed Wildairo and Echo.

Wildairo was aggressive to humans yet understood what I was trying to do and opened his heart to me. I trained him while I was recovering from total ankle replacement and gentled him pretty much while standing on one leg. Before I adopted the mustangs I'd only been around tame domestic horses.

Echo was the kind of horse that could have been given up on due to his absolute terror of all things human. He now is the most loving and gentle horse I have ever met.

The key to taming a wild horse is making them trust and like you before asking them to do too much. Professional horse trainers have to do things a bit different because they can't waste time training horse to eat carrots and to give kisses, but for the rest of us, this is a hobby to be enjoyed.

To go the on-line adoption by clicking here.

Go here if your browser won't take you directly to the BLM on-line adoption site by the link above. https://www.blm.gov/adoptahorse/onlinegallery.php

A job well done...until....

For the first time in many days there was no wind and so I filled my sprayer and headed out into the sunshine and sprayed all the weeds in my one acre garden.

Suddenly everything changed and this happened!

That's not a pond but our driveway!

The return of the plant trimmer.

The first thing I saw this morning when I opened my eyes was a deer munching on my little plants in my native (wild) plant area. When I got downstairs she was checking out the shade plant area that I am developing. A few days ago I planted some ferns in there and I was wondering what else would look good and woodsie and she was like, 'how about a deer'? (Picture taken through window).

She looks like a yearling and is a bit scruffy. She saw Muffin and followed Muff through the flower beds. I went outside to get a better shot of her and she ran away....for some reason.

We often have deer in the garden but they usually show up in a herd.

Wildairo likes to stand on this hill to keep an eye on the corrals and the cattle in the other direction.

Wildairo still hasn't ventured far from the corrals. When the cattle go out into the sagebrush he tries to find Dandylyons to bring her back to keep him company. She has become very clever at sneaking off.

The other evening when Brad and I were at the corrals we could hear Wildairo whinnying off in the distance. It was his 'where's my comfort cow' whinny. Then we saw the whole herd coming running towards us with Wildairo behind them. The cows hate to run but the calves were having a great deal of fun. Once the cows stopped Wildairo went through them looking for Dandylyons. When he couldn't find her he became very cross and did a fast angry gallop back out into the sagebrush looking for her. The funny thing was as he raced off a little white calf stayed right with him and it was extremely comical to see. The calves think he's really cool and much more fun then their mothers.

Windy weather.

Yesterday it was so windy. I had a fight with a big metal barrel that kept trying to roll over my flower beds and crush the few little plants I have. Brad came to the rescue and tied it to power pole with baling twine. Where would we be without baling twine?

It has been windy for days and I need to spray weeds. I let the weeds go unchecked last year because Foxsun was allowed to go where he pleased after he received a poor prognoses on his health. One of the places he liked to go was an area that I planted native plants in that I call my wild area. I planted lots of Golden Current, Choke Cherry and Serviceberry. I also planted a couple of Spruce trees, Elderberries and Maples. It should be a nice spot when it all grows in. Little yellow flags mark the little trees and shrubs and Foxsun didn't crush any of the plants.

These pictures I took this morning.

You can see the deer help me by doing a little pruning now and again. The white electric fence is to keep our cattle out.

The day before the wind storm I was playing with Echo and I noticed he had what's commonly know as an 'eye booger' and I went to wipe it away only to discover it was something else. It must have been very uncomfortable for him because he let me remove it without a struggle. I had to use one hand to hold his eye lids open and the other to remove the object which turned out to be five inch long hair or piece of grass. He was very glad to have that out. Last year he held still so I could put my fingers under his tongue and remove the seeds packed in there causing his mouth to bleed. He knows when he needs help.

Echo is really bonding now and is a very affectionate boy. Last week I made a pathetic attempt at getting him more comfortable with ropes by throwing the lead rope over his back. He leapt into the air and became airborne in a successful effort to dislodge the rope snake. Now when he's scared, instead of running away from me, he comes to me for safety.

Max hangs around the corrals then walks home with us to have his dinner and spend the night indoors.

It wasn't too long ago that Echo would run to the far end of the corrals when he was being fed hay, snorting loudly. He was so scared of people. The sound of metal gates banging would make him shake in fear. Now I can open gates to lead him through and the other night while taking him a midnight apple snack, I was belting out a few choruses of the Apple Sauce song and he put his head over the gate and gave my face a big sloppy lick.

Flower arranging, pigs and a dog.

I often take pictures of thing's that catch my fancy and then forget all about them. Here are some of those pictures before they are forgotten forever.

The other sunny Sunday morning I was cooking breakfast with the usual herd of pets around my feet and I looked down and saw something funny. Little Blondie had got out of her cat bed still wearing the blanket she sleeps under. At first it was perfectly aligned but by the time I got my camera the other pets had mobbed her knocking it askew.

Tommy Two Tone likes it.

Montie marvels at it as Bobby looks on waiting her turn to inspect things.

That same Sunday Brad and I took a drive to a friends farm and I saw something I wanted. They were moving all these pigs and putting them in crates. I saw this little runt with his head all cocked off to the side and really had to have him.

Well, it turns out Brad is very anti pig. He went on and on about how they don't stay cute for long and my argument about Echo needing a pig pal seemed pretty weak and so I gave up my new dream of having a pig pet.

To completely change the subject; I'm really not into flower arranging but I think I hit on something clever. I was looking for a place to put these daffodils and couldn't find the right vase. Then I found this old milk bottle and it was perfect.

Why do I have a milk bottle from the Wilden Village Dairy in Bedfordshire England? I just hope the milkman isn't looking for it.

Still on the subject of flower arranging; I was pruning a crab apple of some cross branching and stuffed the little branches in a vase and then the buds opened and it looked kind of nice.

And to think I usually just throw the trimmings away.

The crab apple above is a Red Jade. My original tree died of fire blight but left behind some seedlings around it's base. I pulled one up and planted it. It's grown quiet nice but is not a weeping tree like it's parent.