IF YOU LIKE WIND, TODAY IS A GREAT DAY......!!!!

I think California is headed for New Mexico today.  I don't know how hard the wind is blowing, but it is really nasty, reminds me of Iceland.  The wind blew there constantly, which in the winter was really interesting.  Only place I ever was, that you could have a snowstorm and when you looked out the window, the snow was blowing straight up.  

I'm still fighting the good fight with Boaz's habronema in the corner of his mouth.  One good thing, almost all the ones I'm getting out now are huge, a large as a piece of rice.  So my assumption is, there isn't a lot of re-infestation, although the flies are hanging around.  I'm putting Invermectin on twice a day, so if they do drop some eggs, hopefully the eggs won't survive.  I've e-mailed Renee at Colorful Equine to see if she can make me a couple of long nosed crusader masks for him to wear.  Her usual long masks wouldn't cover where he has sores. 

I have noticed that Quilla's hair was starting to get matted in his arm pits and down his legs.  So has Coquette and BlackJack.  They all have fine fluffy hair and I've always had to watch BJ's arm pits, because if you don't get to them, they will wad up against the skin and can cause sores.  

I decided that Quilla probably needed to be body clipped, so I got out my toys this morning.  To show you how neglected these poor guys get, although I look them over on a daily basis, I obviously don't touch their bodies enough.  Usually as I walk by, if someone looks like they need a scratch, it's on the face or neck.  

Got all the stuff out, John brought the extension cord down from the garage for the clippers, got my animal crackers, tied up my victim and was ready to go.  Decided to brush some of the dirt out of his hair, to hopefully make my clipper blade last a little longer.  One swipe with the brush, I went to a curry comb and boy did the hair start flying, literally, remember the wind discussion in paragraph one?  You certainly didn't want to be downwind.....!!!! LOL  He just needs a good currying.  So I handed John a curry comb, he did one side I did the other.  Even all the mats came out, without a lot of drama.  

We are going to "try" to curry someone every morning, unless things get too crazy.  At least we can do BJ and Coquette and maybe work on those 3 for awhile since they all have a problem with mats.  We'll see how long this idea lasts........!!!

1ST HORNY TOAD OF THE SEASON........!!!

I've always loved these little guys.  I spent a lot of time when I was a kid, catching them & finding an ant hill for them.  I'm sure they could find ants to eat without my interference, but for some reason I thought it was necessary to "help" them.

We usually only see a few each year, when I was a kid in west Texas they were everywhere.  I would imagine a lot of donkey feet pounding the ground isn't conducive to having horny toads habituating with them.  Very rarely see any snakes either.  

The toads here are different than the ones in Odessa, Texas, ours were more sandy colored rather than an off gray color, & had spines on their backs.  These have spines all around their head, but their body is relatively smooth. 

Everything is going pretty good right now for a change.......well except for cute little Wister & his favorite past time.......removing fly masks from anyone that will hold still.  His poor long suffering Mom, Ruthie pays the price when they are in their pen to eat.  She can't get away from him, & the next thing we hear is the sound of velcro  being ripped apart.

BlackJack has been coming in without a mask for the last few days.  Really didn't think Wister was that brave, but you never know.  The mesquite beans are getting ripe & the donkeys know it.  John caught BJ, sticking his head into the middle of mesquite trees, & shaking the trunk to make the beans fall.  Our thought is, when he pulls his head back, chances are the masks are getting caught & off they come.  I think there's 3 of his out there right now.  

We've already started cutting down on hay because of the beans & watching poo piles with a judgemental eye.  Coquette, Penny, Frijolita & Daisy have already went on short rations.  We have to be careful not to cut too much hay, because they need to eat hay to make sure the beans don't go thru their system in a ball.  The local rancher said he has found cow skeletons with a ball of beans as big as a basketball,  they couldn't pass.  I hope we don't have to put any of them in pens until the beans are gone.  Poor little Buddy usually has to spend the summer in the pens, letting us know how mistreated he is every time he sees us go out of the house. 

POITOU (The dreadlock donkey)
 

This morning we changed Jenny's foot bandage in her pen for the first time, rather than taking her up to the garage.  John put down a piece of plywood, & she was still eating her hay, so she actually stood still.  

The foot is still doing good, although she seems to be moving slow & ouchy.  Can't really tell which foot or feet are bothering her, could be all 4, since all of her feet are compromised.  Courtney is suppose to come Wednesday to trim her & whoever else needs it, so hopefully that will make her more comfortable.  

We did home studies today for BJ & Boaz's foster home.  They will have a job description, grass & weed control.  As soon as the "mowing" is done, we'll go pick them up.  It looks like they will have a lot of variety in their diet, certainly won't need any hay that's for sure.  

Then we checked out Ruger & Pancho's foster home at Sonoita.  We had instructions on how to get there &  at the last turn, there was a gorgeous mare motel on the corner.  Imagine my delight to find out that is the property where they are going.  We got out of the van & headed straight for the mare motel for a "look-see".  The place was a foreclosure, Trina has only been there 3 weeks, so there is some neglect, but it's really a nice 7 stall motel with a huge tack room.  Trina said she's going to try to sell it, I would imagine it's worth a lot of money & she said she would never use it.  I doubt the donkeys would appreciate it anyway.  They will also have access to natural food, at least until the monsoons are over & everything dries up.  Lots of tumbleweeds , Trina was disappointed when I told her they won't eat them.   

Dragging my poor little race car to the track, went really well last night & I got points for starting the main event, even though I was a hazard........!!! LOL  I started in the back, I didn't want to get in the way.  My original idea was to just run one lap.   The rod was knocking, but only if I gave it enough gas to go above 3000 RPM.  So I put it in 3rd gear, (easier on the motor than 2nd gear) & decided to stay out until the first wreck or until they started lapping me, whichever came first.  The lapping came pretty quick, like the 2nd lap, the whole field of 20 cars "freight trained" me.   I knew they would probably lap me again within 2 laps, so as soon as they all "flew" past, I pulled off.  

Hopefully we can find another motor & get it put in before the 15th.  We've been looking on the internet & it looks like Kia Sephia motors don't grow on trees.  Glad the holiday is over, maybe we can find one locally tomorrow.  I found one in San Antonio & one in Covina, CA, but I'd REALLY rather find one locally, for a lot of reasons, one being not much time until the 15th.    

CLIPPING MISS DAISY

This morning I was petting Daisy & noticed she had lots of mats in her armpits & also the hair was sweat stiff.  This spring I was going to body clip her, but the Donkey Yahoo group had a pro-con discussion about whether to clip or not to clip.  Although the consensus was, God intended them to have hair to insulate from the desert heat, she does have Cushings & is on 3mg of Pergolide a day, so her hair growth isn't exactly "normal".  

One reason I'd put off clipping is I didn't know if my hands & wrists would take it.  A broken thumb, broken wrist & metatarsal bone in one hand & an eroding cyst in the other wrist, cuts into my style............!!!  But I decided to give it a try wearing my splints.  

This is what I had to work with, a very hairy girl.  Daisy's former owner gave me a big set of clippers made by Oster Stewart, I think you could clip a Yak with them, no problem.  But they are big & heavy.

It really went much better than I thought it would.  She's a good girl, she stood real still, maybe it felt good to get all of this off:

My hands held up real well, didn't have any problems & this is the finished product.

I didn't clip her legs, no sense in giving the flies a head start in gnawing their way to bare skin.

Lysa was here cleaning pens, in fact she was my back up in case I couldn't finish clipping Daisy.  She said we should try clipping BlackJack.  I told her if she wanted to, by all means have at it..............BUT........that I didn't think BJ would like it.  And when he doesn't like something he has a way of letting you know.  I remember him throwing himself on the ground in a temper fit one time because we had the audacity to want to trim his feet.  He's self trimmed his feet ever since.  I would imagine he would let me pick his feet up now without having a tantrum, but clippers.........????   Maybe not........!!! 

Took Mocha & Tucker to the vet this morning to get their blood tests & health certificates.  As soon as the results for the Coggins test gets back, we'll make arrangements to haul them to their new home.  Tucker is 9 months old today & we sure are going to miss him.  No matter what he's doing, he always comes up to the fence to greet you, if you are in the neighborhood.  Before this morning I had never seen him kick.  But he did NOT appreciate having his temperature taken & gave one of the "frustrated baby" kicks they do when they can't control what's going on.  Ruger is about 1 1/2 years old & he still does it.  

Buddy Brat got  a complete blood work-up for Thyroid & also Glucose & Insulin.  I know he is insulin resistant, want to find out how much.  Poor little guy has always had a weight problem & he loves to eat. 

In the "musical" pen dance, he ended up without a pen, & Honcho & BlackJack are sharing a pen with the hay bunk down the middle.  We dump their hay into the bunk & they can both eat from their respective sides.  Well, they would be able to except BJ has decide Honcho doesn't need to eat.  He makes ugly faces at Honcho & Honcho respects BJ's space, although their space is separated by the bunk.......Sigh........!!  I guess Honcho's run-in's with Boaz have made a believer out of him.

Buddy hates not having a pen, so we tried putting a corral panel across the side of the feed room to give him a feeling of being in a pen.  Not good enough, so John is out in the heat of the day, building another pen for Honcho, so he doesn't have to put up with "nasty" BJ.  BJ so loves to have someone that actually takes him serious.  And he's going to put up a "real" pen for Buddy, so he will be comfortable in "his" space.  

This is Simmons on the left & Pancho on the right.  They came in yesterday morning & have already met everyone thru the corral panels.  We'll keep them in for a couple of days to get acclimated without having everyone in their face at one time.  Boaz looked them over pretty good last night, daring them to challenge his authority I guess.  They just kind of looked at him like, " whatever", so I don't think there will be any fireworks like there was with Honcho.  Honcho by the way has been staying out of Boaz's space & everything is nice & quiet.  

Jenny of course came by & did her "slut" walk for them last night.  Poor little Pancho got so excited he jumped on Simmons.  I don't think Simmons appreciated the experience, he seemed to think he should be the guy.  Jenny meets & greets every guy that comes on the property & always has.  She's still got Buddy's attention, he loves to follow her around. 

Courtney got out yesterday late as usual.........!!!  She was suppose to be here around 10:30, got here after 4pm.  Needless to say the ones that had waited ALL day in their pens for her to get here, weren't very happy.  Courtney has never figured out there is only 24 hours in a day, & I don't think she ever will........!!!

She did 8 of them, including Gus & Jenny, which are the reason she was here again so soon.  She wants me to send pictures of Jenny's feet to the clinic in Gilbert to make sure she's trimming the way they want her trimmed, & also to see if there is anything else we need to do.  We don't see any growth down from the coronet over the resection area, but it does look like the open area is getting narrower.  The hole in the bottom has grown out enough that she trimmed some of it off.  So I guess we're making progress.  Jenny was one of those that stayed in her pen all day & didn't appreciate the situation.  She wasn't really horrible, but she did let us know she wasn't real happy.  Although animal crackers given at regular intervals seemed to soothe her nerves.

Courtney was pleased with how well Gus is walking & the fact that he is moving around more than he did a year ago.  She also noticed how svelte he's getting.  He still has his little saddle pads, but like she said, when she first saw him, you could have set a dinner service for 6 on his back.  Now maybe just service for two.  He might keep those pads, a lot of time they don't lose them, but he does look much more comfortable.  

She noticed Honcho's feet were pretty long so we decided to do him.  When Honcho left here 1 1/2 year ago, he was good with his feet.  I put a halter on him, he took one look at Courtney & absolutely had a tantrum.  For a donkey he is very quick & always has had a lot of attitude.  Let me put it this way, you better be smart & knowledgeable or he'll be running the place in no time.  Courtney said, "no problem",  She has a couple of rope halters with knots that line up with the nerves on either side of the nose.  All rope halters have the knots but these are "special"....!!!  Put that on him, & he never even challenged it, he stood like it was what he had planned for the day.  Which of course irritated both Courtney & me since he could have done that in the first place.  But he's always challenged authority & guess he always will.  I'd love to find him a home where his personality was appreciated as it is, he could be taught to do just about anything.......if he wanted to do it. 

Found out yesterday what probably happened to the masks Boaz is missing.  When we were rounding up last night, BlackJack had a death grip on Boaz's mask.  Yelling & chasing on our part just made it more fun, no matter what we did, BJ wouldn't let go........Grrrrr!  Finally Boaz took a quick turn & BJ lost his grip.  I wondered why Boaz was the only one losing masks.  Now that Buddy Brat is back BJ will have 2 of them to pester.  Years ago I went out & saw dust & dirt flying up in the air.  BlackJack had hold of Buddy's mask & had reared up in the air, so all 4 of Buddy's feet were off the ground.  GOOD FLY MASKS, sorry Betty quit making them..........!!!!!

WE MADE IT.........!!!

Got home in time to feed this afternoon, which was a surprise.  We actually were only at the vet clinic a little over an hour, & that included visiting with our friend Nancy a little bit.  She retired from her job today & they had a going away lunch for her, so she didn't know if she'd make it to the clinic or not.  

I think Jenny was glad to see us, she came over to the fence as soon as she saw the truck & trailer.  They had just changed her bandage yesterday, so instead of watching the vet told me the layers from inside out.  I'm much better at visual lessons, but the main thing is to keep it clean, there's no medicine to put on it, so I should be able to figure it out.  The vet said I might have to sedate her, I guess she's been acting like Jenny & giving them a hard time when they would dress her foot.  I'd like to say she won't do that with me, but I know better........!!!!  (G)  Jenny can be VERY uncooperative if she wants to be.  

She loaded pretty good, for her & made the trip home just fine.  She was ready to get out when we got here & went right in the hay barn.  Since then she has seen all there is to see, she's been visited by most of the donkeys & is ready to go out.  She lets us know that by trying to knock the corral panels down.  SIGH!  She can't go out until I figure out just how much abuse a duct tape bandage will take.  The next bandage change is Monday, in the meantime I'll have to check it a couple of times a day to make sure she isn't wearing out the duct tape, even though the ground in the hay barn is really soft. 

If you listen to the video at the end you will hear John yelling.  I asked him what happened & he said BlackJack kicked him.  BJ is usually very careful about messing up, but in all the hoopla & donkeys milling around he didn't look before he kicked, caught John on the knee.  Sure made John cranky, later BJ came up & laid his head on John's chest, guess he was trying to make up. 

THE HERD IS GROWING AFTER ALL..........!!

The best laid plans of mice & men sometimes take a detour, which is why it is a good idea to "never say never".........!!! 

We had made a decision to not take anymore animals in for awhile, because our numbers keep creeping over our self imposed limit, even with some in foster care.  But a woman I know that runs a private sanctuary like us, is having to downsize.  She has a mini horse with nasty feet, demineralized coffin bones, somewhat like Jenny's are.  Rusty the white mule, LOVES the little horses, we've had 2 here & he literally worshipped them, put his life on hold to go with them & do what they wanted to do.  Bijou is only 10 years old, & the chances of her being able to find a home that would be willing to take care of his special needs long term, isn't very good.  Soooooo, I told her if no one wanted him we'd take him.  

As these things often do, as we were trying to figure out a cheap way to haul him about 200 miles, a friend of hers that lives close to us is going up to her area this week-end with a horse trailer.  He offered to haul Bijou back & we'll pick him up Sunday.  There are good people out there, & although it doesn't really make up for the people that destroy these animals, it is wonderful that the good ones still outnumber the bad ignorant ones.  Haven't seen him, have seen his x-rays, poor little guy.  

Of course our pens are full, so where are we going to put him?  Can't put him in with Rusty, as Rusty doesn't "share" well at meal time.  Hmmmmm!  Finally decided that BlackJack can eat out of a pen & Bijou can  go in his pen.  BJ doesn't care, he's become very flexible over the years & as long as there is food he could care less where it's at.  

Got a call from Bill yesterday.  Kelli his wife got home from the hospital & is really having fun getting to know Zorro & Maddie.  He had a question about their behavior.  He said Zorro was jumping on & biting Maddie & she was kicking the snot out of Zorro.  I keep forgetting to tell new owners about donkey foreplay...!!! LOL  Guess I should make up a list of behaviors that donkeys do.  

Boy am I glad 2 days of racing is over, it wears me out & I wasn't doing anything except sitting in the bleachers.....!!! 

The races started 2 hours late yesterday, which meant we didn't get home until about 9:30pm.  The donkeys are use to being fed starting around 5pm, give or take a few minutes.  Needless to say they weren't happy.  We rushed around, getting them in & "slinging hash", so to speak.  It was going pretty good until John took BlackJack's hay into his pen.  BJ always has definite idea of right & wrong, especially when it pertains to his personal wants & needs.  

When John opened the gate, BJ slammed into the gate & got out.  No big deal, but he rushed over to where Frijolita was enjoying her hay & grabbed a big mouthful.  I yelled at him, which of course scared Frijolita, she thought I was after her, so she took off.  BJ went past me, & kicked up his heels as he went by...........Grrrr.......!!!  I grabbed a poo rake & went after him.  If I could have moved fast enough to smack him I would.  Unfortunately he seems to know exactgly how long the handle is, & managed to keep that distance, while munching on his stolen hay........!!! 

John & I finally trapped him, so his only option was to go into his pen, which he did with style & grace.  Anyone that ever thinks these animals aren't smart or don't have a sense of humor, obviously has never observed them very much.  He was putting us in our place for having the audacity to feed so late.  The little kick to the side always accompanies his judgement of our short comings, it's never close to us, in fact I doubt that you could ever get kicked by BJ.  But he does want you to know you have upset his routine.

The races today started closer to on-time, but we still got  home late.  The neighbor's were going to feed, but were in a car wreck in Tucson today.  They are OK, but feeding didn't go as planned.  Dave fed hay, he hasn't learned how to feed mush & supplements, but that was OK, they just got their hay first & got to stay in their pens until we got home & fed them their pans.  It only takes them a couple of minutes to eat the stuff, so then they got to go out.  Of course they ALWAYS get their hay AFTER their mush, so they expected more hay.  But once they figured out they were going out, all was forgiven & they took off.