Wordless Wednesday ~ Hello Up There!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Belated Birthday

 

Over the weekend, we finally were able to celebrate Jen’s 8th birthday, just a week late. We would have had her family party earlier in the week, but Jax came down with the same creeping crud that Jen and I were attacked by, and then Ranchman John was stricken by it, too. Jem finally got the nasty 24 hour virus yesterday and he’s feeling it’s affects right now. Poor guy.

But at least we were all feeling pretty good over the weekend. Feeling well enough to have a party!

There were presents.

 

 Thank you, Nana and Papaw for the Sponge Bob stuff. 

And her big brothers helped get everything assembled and ready to play with.

Jax was a little overwhelmed by all the feminine touches to the toys.

I don’t what’s stranger. The fact that my 14 year old son chooses to wear a nubby little elf hat every day. Or the fact that we don’t even notice it anymore. (except in photos. Why is that?)

But Jax was a pretty good sport and had some fun taking Polly Pocket down the zip line and setting her up by the campfire.

Jem worked hard inflating Jen’s new exercise ball, and measuring it’s circumference to just the right diameter.

 

And then it was time for ice cream cake…..looks like a finger or two may have already taste-tested it prior. ahem.

Gene Simmons…..Smurf Style.

And Miss Sage Kitty insisted on trying some of that electric blue frosting, too.

I think she was disappointed it wasn’t fish flavored.

Thanks to everyone for the sweet birthday wishes for Jen when she was sick. She still enjoyed a fun birthday even if the creeping crud tried to ruin it for her. Kids are pretty resilient that way.

Sunday Stills ~Pets

 

This week’s Sunday Stills Challenge is to photograph our pets. I’ve had a super busy week and been away from home a lot, so I had to dig into my archives.

Sage kitty

Dobbie girl

Apache mare

My daughter adores her pet chicken, Bertha. I’d say that the feeling is mutual.

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.

It’s Gone

 

After a week of going up to the main paddock almost daily with gloves, trimmer, step stool (to sit on and take the ache out of my back and knees), and my water bottle in hand, I’ve finally got control of all the sage by aggressively cutting, trimming, and pulling…..and a whole lot of sweat and sore muscles.

It’s finally gone.

You can see the *Before* photo with This Link.

Here are the *After* photos:

(You can still see the stumps of the sage left behind, which I’ll get help pulling them out with the tractor soon) Oh…and it rained not long after I took these photos. Not much, though. It sure is dry and dusty around here. We only got enough rain this summer for about 3 weeks of grass growth. It’s all dried up and brown already.

A couple of you asked if Bella might have gotten sage sickness too, because of the way she acted so out of character and bucked my twinling Jax. It’s possible. Bella really liked the back paddock and spent much time in there. After we sent her back to the horse rescue, I did a walk-thru of that paddock and noticed that two sage bushes had been destroyed, as if she had attacked them.

(Here’s a pic of that back paddock. Bella destroyed the sage bushes, so it’s sage free)

And she had also eaten the bark of the juniper and pinon trees, too. Apache doesn’t even do that. But considering that Bella was staying here to help her lose some weight and was only getting one flake of hay three times a day, and no grain, due to her insulin resistance, it’s a real possibility that the change in diet, eating less food, caused her to be hungry enough to binge on large amounts of sage.

Which is kind of sad if that happened, because I really liked Bella and felt she fit in well here, even though she had health and boundary respect issues. Apache really seemed to like Bella, too.

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This is a view from the back of the main paddock looking towards our house. Notice all the sage is gone now. Only the yuccas and trees are left. You can see the large grey log, just left of center, that Jen and I are sitting on in my blog header.

 

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Apache seems quite confused about the loss of all of her yummy sage shrubs.

(Do you have any idea the amount of courage it takes me to get anywhere near the backside of my mare? I about had a panic attack after this photo was taken, because I was sort of wedged into the corner of this paddock, between two fences and her body, only about 3 feet from her butt.  She had come to me for some scratching and petting when she got jealous seeing me petting Annie, my neighbor friend’s mare.

And when I was done petting her, Apache turned away to walk up the hill. I didn’t relax until she was over 10 feet away from me. whew! After getting kicked in the face, the back side of any horse is not ever where I want to be.)

Apache did stay very close to Jenna and I the entire time we cleared away the sage and weeds. I caught her eating the sage and some other weeds while I was pulling them out. I think she was mostly doing that because she wanted me to stop pulling sage and pay attention to her instead.

 

During all the clearing of the sage, I also discovered a couple of other suspect weeds that I’m removing, too.

Does anyone know what this weed is? It’s those green mounds down to the left and right of Jen’s feet. She took a break from hauling weeds to love on Val’s Arabian mare, Annie.

Close up. Notice the little berry-like fruit. They remind me of mini unripe tomatoes.

After doing some research on the Guide to Poisonous Plants Search Feature, I’m guessing Horse Nettle, which can be toxic to horses if eaten in large amounts. ugh! It’s growing all along the fenceline and I watched Apache grab a bite of it just the other day.

I also found this plant.

I think it’s a Chinese Lantern or Ground Cherry, a member of the Physalis family, which can be poisonous to horses if ingested in large amounts, causing colic, bloat and diarrhea. What a mess!

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I had some help clearing the weeds. My daughter Jen loaded up piles of sage and weeds and hauled them up to the hill to the goat paddock and compost pile.

And the goats and llamas sauntered down to help munch on the little bits of sage and weeds that I missed.

Apache really likes the goats and tries to groom them and nibble on their tails.

Unfortunately, the goats aren’t as open-minded about Apache’s attention and usually run-off. Except Latte, my mini-mancha doe. She seems to be a little more tolerant of Apache’s affection and curiosity.

Apache really likes Dobbie, too. She’s always trying to nuzzle and lick my little dog.

Apache tolerates the llamas, but sometimes tries to herd them around, which usually ends up with Apache getting spat upon. 

But the llamas really like Dobbie and try to nuzzle her, which leads to Dobbie running away and hiding behind me.

(That’s Catlinite, my gelding guard llama sniffing, Dobbie. And my sweet Angora doe, Luna is walking down on the left)

This is Cataleya, Catlinite’s half-sister. She’s my good llama who enjoys going for walks and getting out and exploring. I taught her how to carry her own pack. Catlinite, on the other hand, is a worry wart and doesn’t enjoy stepping off his own home turf.

 

And Dobbie likes to pretend she’s a herding dog when she’s around the goats. They don’t seem to care for that behavior very much, and are always sure to let her know. Dobbie still has fun anyway.

(In this video, you get to see Dobbie “herding” the goats, me getting pestered by a goat, and Apache feeling left out and coming over to join the craziness)