Hot.

It's been very hot here in Odessa, Washington. We are prepared for the hot dry weather in the summer by irrigating all our crops (lawns and gardens) and having air conditioning in our house and vehicles. It's been in the upper 90's, reaching 100 degrees Sunday.



Todays forcast...

Today

Very hot. High clouds in the morning...then mostly sunny. Highs 97 to 100. Southwest wind 5 to 10 mph in the morning...becoming 5 to 15 mph in the afternoon.

It's a very dry heat. Our annual precipitation is only about 10 inches. It most of it coming when we are putting up hay it seems!

I waited till the sun was low on the horizon before venturing out to work with Echo.


Brad has been spending some time when he feeds him and said he'd been getting him to move into the small pen calmly and stand still. But with two people there Echo acted silly by snorting about high headed. Brad had to put him behind the gate and I was pleased he stood in the 'position' without any fuss.

Once again he was very tense and froze with his back arched. I calmed him down and made a halter for him from my rope.


As you can see I'm not very good with ropes.

Here he is standing behind the gate.


There's a lot of room in front of him so I thought I'd give him his first leading lesson.


He refused to move his feet. Ever since he tried to push his way through the metal gate and lost some hair he's decided it's safer to keep his feet firmly planted. Not even a giant juicy carrot would make him step forward. I didn't push this issue because it's a good thing he doesn't move when he's being held in a small place. I'm thinking about the future when he's hauled places or being examined in the vets chute.

The William showed up which made him happy because all William does is say "Hello Boy" in a loud voice and feed him carrots. He really showed a lot of interest in William.

I showed Brad my awful knot and he, being the maker of fine baling twine riding bridles......(see below)

..... fixed it a bit better for me.


At that point Echo decided to have an out of body experience. Probably to gallop across the sage brush flats of his old wild home with that cute little filly he left behind.


After letting him go I went and had a nice cool moonlit swim in my little pool. There's a flock of bats that show up for a drink every evening. I enjoy watching them all the while hoping they have they radars turned on so they don't fly into my face which is poking up out of the water.