Backyard Kayaking

 

During our generous New Mexico summer monsoon season this year, my friend Barb invited me over to kayak in her backyard. Her property was a part of a large ranch where they grew pinto beans, so the ranch owners had built natural water tanks into the ground to cache rain water so they could irrigate their bean fields.

One of these water tanks is located on the back of my friend Barb’s property, and this year, due to our generous monsoon rains, hers filled up with water, deep and wide enough to enjoy some backyard kayaking.

 

Barb’s husband Barry took some of these photos of us while we were kayaking in the pond. Barb and Barry were once the managers/founders of The Lucky 13 Donkey Rescue. Now they just own 2 personal donkeys, along with 2 mules and a horse, and a small pack of Boxers.

 

Kayaking with donkeys!

 

The equines were all very curious about the kayaks.

Barb gave a ride to one of her Boxers.

It was a lot of fun to watch the reaction of the equines to the kayaks and the dog in the kayak.

Just hanging out…..

 

Their mule, Jacob, tried to haul Barb’s kayak back onto shore using the handhold rope.

See the fence out in front of my kayak? That’s the fence between Barb and her neighbor. As you can see it is underneath the water and we could kayak right over the fence and into her neighbor’s yard.

Barb and I had a fun time racing one another, playing beach ball hockey and just relaxing on the water.

Barb’s beautiful mare Alex is a seahorse and loves water. She often swims in this pond, when it’s not as deep as it was during the monsoon season. The middle of the pond was over 10 feet deep!

I was thrilled to be in a kayak on the water. Who knew I’d be able to go kayaking just 10 minutes from my house…in my friend’s backyard?!

The sky grew dark and we had a few sprinkles while we were out there on the pond, but we were able to enjoy about an hour and a half of kayaking, before another thunder storm moved in and dumped more rain.

 

This was definitely one of the highlights of my summer!

Feeling a little Long-Eared…..

 

Or sluggish. Whatever you want to call it, I’m dragging my feet, tired, sick, and can’t get ahead. Feeling a little long in the ears.

(Photo below of Ruby from WNCR Horse Rescue)

We had a terrific time camping down in southern New Mexico, just south of Alamogordo, earlier this week and I’ll post more about that soon. But ever since I got home I’ve been so busy and then the kidlets all got sick, which of course means that I’m usually next to fall sick. And it’s the walking dead sort of sick….you’re still able to get stuff done, but feel as if you’re a walking zombie. My ears are stuffed up, my throat is scratchy and my nose won’t stop running.

Thankfully this nastiness doesn’t seem to last long, and I’ll be right as rain soon.

Speaking of rain, we did get a few showers the other day, along with some hail showers and even a couple snow flurries, too. It wasn’t enough, though, and the ground was completely dry by the next day. Sure wish someone could figure out a way to blow some of those rain clouds away from those of you who are getting flooded, and send them all the way to us here in the desert Southwest.

Finally, I’m also a little bummed because I wasn’t able to be the photographer for the Steve Edwards Mule & Donkey Clinic that is being hosted by my friend and mentor, Colleen, down at her 4 Winds Equestrian Center. I just didn’t have the energy and felt too sick, so I had to call Colleen and bow out. She was totally understanding and told me that it actually wouldn’t have been worth my time or money to drive the 30 minutes down there, when only 5 people had registered for the Mule and Donkey Clinic.

(Photo below from the October 2010 ACTHA CTC)

I guess Steve Edwards was expecting to have about 12 students, but between the cost of the clinic, the cost of gas and the long distance to the ranch, it may have deterred more folks from attending.

(Photo below from the October 2010 ACTHA CTC)

It still would have been fun to go just to see the cute long ears and visit with my friends at the ranch.

But what can ya do when you’re feeling a little long in the ears?

(Photo of Ruby from WNCR)

Have you missed me???

 

I’ve sure missed all of you! What did we do before computers, eh? Our computer was down for 4 days, due to a faulty part, and we just got the part yesterday. My first time back into the virtual world and blogging was this morning…and Boy Howdy! Did it feel good!!!

But it seems I’ve missed a whole heck of a lot of what everyone’s been up to. Looks like I’ll need to do some serious catching up!

So, what have I been up to? Well besides the normal stuff around the ranch, taking care of my kidlets and working through our homeschool schedule, field trips, guitar lessons, Kindermusik, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, I’ve also been busy volunteering for Walkin N Circles Ranch Horse Rescue.

I’ve been a volunteer at WNCR for two years now and last year I was not as active as I’d have liked due to recuperating from injuries and taking care of my kidlets. A couple months ago I signed on to be on the Public Relations and Advertising Team for the Horse Rescue, and I’m having fun with that, but I wanted to do more hands-on stuff, too. Walkin N Circles Ranch Horse Rescue has been asking for more volunteers to work The Hug-A-Horse Thrift Shop since it is a huge fund-raising venture for WNCR, and because I only live about 10 minutes away, I figured I could help make a difference in some of the horses’ lives.

There’s lots of good stuff in the Thrift Shop and I find it fun to sort through it, organize it, fold the linens and hang up clothes, and set out the household items and books attractively for the customers to see and buy. I also find a few goodies for me, too. Every dollar made goes directly back to the Horse Rescue, so it feels great to see folks buying lots of stuff that’s been donated.

And it makes me feel a little better knowing that my spare time is being spent helping raise money to care for and rescue horses, like this poor, starving, abandoned mare along with an abandoned gelding, rescued by my friends Colleen, Christine and Loeta this week. (This is their photo)

How sad is that?

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On Saturday I worked at The Hug-A-Horse Thrift Shop and then on Sunday I volunteered to work the Walkin N Circles Ranch Horse Rescue table set up in Walmart.

Walmart donates a lot of items, including clothing and household items, to our Thrift Shop, and they wanted to give back even more by helping some of the local rescues and non-profits get their names and missions out there for the public to see.

It was a pretty successful experience considering that WNCR volunteers talked about the Horse Rescue, shared flyers and information…….and took in over $230 in donations both days. Woot!

I was pretty happy to be working with my dear friend Renee.

Laura, another horse rescue volunteer, worked the table, too.

 

We had fun chatting with our next door neighbor, Barry, who operates The Lucky 13 Donkey Rescue with his wife Barbara, and the help of many volunteers.

Barry also used to be a volunteer for Walkin N Circles Ranch Horse Rescue before he and his wife started The Lucky 13 Donkey Rescue, and they are actually located just a couple miles from Walkin N Circles Ranch Horse Rescue. They both fell in love with donkeys when a long ear showed up at the Walkin N Circles Horse Rescue. In fact, they adopted that handsome boy back then and he still resides at The Lucky 13 Donkey Rescue!! Such a nice guy, too!

It was fun to see the pictures on the 7MSN blog from Linda’s recent visit at The Lucky 13. I had to laugh when I saw my friend Renee’s paint gelding, Jesse in one of the photos just to realize what a small world we live in. My friend Renee and her husband board their handsome horse Jesse at The Lucky 13 Donkey Rescue and will soon be boarding their newest adopted gelding, another rescue, there, too.

During Linda’s visit she fell in love with a lovely creature named Rachel, a 3 year old Molly Mule, with a beautiful flaxen mane and tale, reminiscent of her good looking gelding Lyle, who passed away earlier this year. Barry and I agreed that she should consider adopting Rachel. Her burros, George and Alan would fall in love with Rachel just as Linda did. (You can see photos of Rachel, and another pretty, but darker Molly Mule named Reba, on the The Lucky 13 Donkey Rescue website).

I sure wish I could adopt a couple of wonderful long ears but sadly I can’t, because one of my neighbors has already said they’d not be happy to have a donkey or two as their neighbor because of the braying. Quite honestly, though, I think horses can be just as noisy, or noisier than donkeys, when they are screaming out for the rest of their herd mates. Oh well.  I may just have to volunteer at The Lucky 13 Donkey Rescue to get my long ear fix in……..

 

 

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On to some really great news. Ranchman John was home this past week. We really enjoyed his visit, but he won’t have to visit us anymore. It’s his last time flying on a plane from Philadelphia to Albuquerque. Wanna know why?

He finally got his transfer to work in Albuquerque!!!!! He’s driving back home next week and will be home for good. Woot! Woot!

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Oh!!! And something exciting happened to me the other day. I was contacted by Animal Planet concerning my recently uploaded You Tube video of Dobbie ‘herding’ our goats. Apparently they loved it and thought it was perfect for an upcoming episode of America’s Cutest Dog II. How cool is that?! They want me to submit that video for the show and have me try to shoot some more cute video of my little Dobbie Girl! Woot!

Hey! Lots of people become famous from their You Tube Videos….why not me and my little dog? hehe!

 

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And finally one more little bit of happy news. We adopted another kitty last week!! Well actually my twinling son, Jem adopted her. He’s been begging for a pet all his own, since everyone else in our family has their own cat or dog, and we felt it was time now. The two of them already adore one another, and I wonder if it was our new kitty that actually adopted Jem, instead of the other way around.

We adopted this sweet little girl from our local Animal Shelter last Friday and we took her in to the Vet yesterday to be spayed and get all her vaccines. We decided to name her Sage, oddly enough, especially after all the trouble I’ve had with the botanical Sage recently with Apache. But her dark grey, black striped fur is silver tipped and shimmers just like silver sage in the moonlight.

                                                           (Art by Layne Johnson)

Sage is a lot like our current kitties Hopi (my twinling son’s kitty) and Javalina (my daughter, Jen’s Manx kitty) in that she adores affection and doesn’t mind being carried around by children. Also, we took Dobbie with us to the Animal Shelter and we we’re happily surprised when Sage and Dobbie got along right off the bat.

She also gets along with Hopi and Javalina, too. (Here they all are hanging out on my twinling Jax’s bed)

 

Sage has a huge motor and purrs loudly whenever we love on her. The Vet staff told us when we picked her up that Sage is one of their most favorite patients and won everyone’s heart. She won ours, too.

 

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Well, I think that’s all for now. I hope to get around and visit all of your blogs over the next few days, but if you have a couple seconds, leave me a comment and let me know what you’ve been up to, too.