MINI MULE UPDATE

Terry says they have settled in nicely, know when carrots are coming out of the house and know where the gate is, so they can be ready, when the carrots are offered.  I guess Zeke the cranky old mule spent last evening trying to intimidate them.  I hate to tell him, but both of them are pretty much intimidate proof.  Terry said he either wore himself out being "mean" or has given up and accepted that change is inevitable, because this morning he's not quite as in their face.  She hasn't put everyone in together yet, so it will be interesting to see how that goes. 

In the name of organizing, we moved BlackJack into their pen.  His pen doesn't have a shelter and we are working towards separating Gigi and Rosie into different pens  to eat.  Rosie is too big an eater for Gigi to compete and since Rosie needs to lose a lot of weight, she needs to have less access to more food than she needs.  They are really doing good with being weaned from alfalfa.  John is on the last bale and it looks like we won't have to buy anymore to continue the weaning.  Gigi is still improving and tonight she didn't get any bute.  We'll see how she is in the morning.  If she's OK, we'll probably try letting them out of the pens Sunday, we should be here all day.  Can't wait to try to get Rosie back in the pen.  I have a feeling it's going to be "interesting".  Hope it doesn't turn into a marathon.......!!!! 

Had 2 different couples show up today for tours, one right after the other one.  John wasn't here and since I wasn't expecting anyone, some of the donkeys were in pens, some were already out.  The donkeys have gotten real good at mingling with people outside their pens.  We don't give the people pellets to feed them, like we do when the donkeys are penned.  But they still like to come up to the people and get petted.  Some of them seems to really think there should be a treat involved, but they don't get pushy, they just makes sure they are available, just in case...........!!!

MOLLY AND JACK WILL BE LEAVING THURSDAY

The woman that came out to see them never got back in touch with me, so I assume she isn't interested.  Thursday we'll haul them to Terry for fostering and possible adoption, IF, they behave themselves.  Actually Terry has told me about some of her other animals and it sounds like they'll fit right in.......!! LOL

Terry use to come out and groom every week, before she got so many animals of her own.  She also took Rusty as a friend for her old mule Zeke.  Zeke hated Rusty guess he saw him as a competitor, so Rusty came back.  She even took Tula one time to see if she could get Tula more people friendly.  Didn't work, and while Tula was there she turned Terry's 2 donkeys wild.  For some reason all the other donkeys see Tula as the head jenny, doesn't matter where she is. 

It will be a great place for Little Jack Horner and Miss Molly Brown and they will get more attention than they would here.  Now if we could just find homes for Ruthie, Wister and Ruger.  They are about the only ones we have adoptable, unless someone might be willing to take on a project.  

This is Boaz's knee as of this morning.

This is Gigi this morning, when we doctored her bed sore.  Tyler thinks she is improving much faster than he expected, especially on the right front, that has the elongated shoe.  Tyler and Nancy were talking about doing a tendonectomy if she couldn't walk on that foot flat.  But she seems to be able to use it very well.  She's spending more time up and less time down, and I am giving her less bute each day.  Once she is off the bute, we will start letting them out of the pen.  Can't wait for the fun of trying to get Rosie back in the pen, she is the "squirrelist" donkey we have ever had, yet she will come up and get right in your face. 

GIGI MIGHT BE FAMOUS SOMEDAY

 Tyler came by today to take a video of Gigi and how she is walking.  He is going to a farrier symposium this week and I have a feeling he is going to "present" her even though this adventure is just starting. 

I wasn't here, but John said Tyler was quite impressed with how well she is walking.  Yesterday she was trying to run and kick at the same time.  (John wanted her to go in a direction she saw no need to go)  She is getting easier to work with, she has a bedsore on her right hip that has to be doctored & bandaged almost daily.  When we first started she was doing a lot of kicking, not necessarily at us, but she wanted us to leave her alone.  Animal crackers make everything better. 

This is the brothers, Wister, and Ruger

Unfortunately the brothers aren't bonding like I wanted.  Wister is more than willing, but Ruger is pretty much a loner.  Even putting them in a pen to eat, hasn't led to a relationship.  Ruger actually spends most of his time by himself and the people that adopted him, said he went off and did his thing, rather than hanging around with Pancho.  So when I get some time, I am going to go thru my list of people looking for horse companions and see if anything looks interesting.  Ruthie seems to raise weird children.........!!! LOL  Wister still runs to her when John lets them out of the pens and tries to nurse.  And she's just about as bad, sometimes John has to put a halter on her to get her to go in the pen she shares with Boaz, because she doesn't want to leave Wister's pen area.  She is also a loner except for her babies, so I guess it's a family thing.   She has nothing to do with the other jennies. 

GOT MY COMPUTER BACK.....!!!

Well, Wednesday I was on the internet and the monitor went black, instantly.  OK, no problem John was going to town, bring me back a monitor.  Hmmmm.............still nothing.  John worked electronics for over 30 years, so he knows about all that wiggle the wires and make sure everything is plugged in.  Nothing........!!!

I took it to a local guy yesterday and he said he'd look at it last night.  This morning I called and he said he hooked it up last night and it worked fine..........!!! He said he'd look at it some more and he'd get in touch with me Monday..............!!!!!   WHAT..........?????   He didn't understand, e-mails were building up even as we spoke.  I told him I really needed to have it before Monday.  So being the nice guy he was he brought it out this morning and sure enough, plugged it in and it's working just fine.  Grrrr.........!! I hate electronics.....!!!  Anyway, it is now working, hopefully it will continue.

Yesterday Courtney came out to do some trimming and Martha came out to see if she could make Gigi more comfortable.  Actually Gigi is doing pretty good I think.  She's not laying down as much and seems to be able to get around easier than before.  Of course she doesn't have 3 pounds of hoof material hanging on the front of her feet anymore either.  She wasn't too sure about all this rubbing and massaging, although she did finally start leaning into Martha a little bit.  

After Martha got through with Gigi we started walking around visiting with the donkeys.  Martha and Pepper have a history, she's massaged him before.  She was quite impressed with how much weight he has gained since the last time she saw him.  She did a little hands on with him and then started to walk off..........not going to happen.  Pepper got right behind her wherever she went, until she did a little more work.  He is such an interesting old character.

Courtney was doing her trimming and we put Ruthie in with Frijolita because she was in the way when Courtney was trimming her two youngsters, Wister and Ruger.  When Courtney went in to do Frijolita, Ruthie wouldn't get out of the way, she was right in Courtney's hip pocket.  Finally Courtney picked up a foot and started up the power tools to get rid of her.  Ruthie just stood there like a statue.  I don't think we've ever had her trimmed before and I seriously doubt if she's been trimmed in the past if it was done with power tools.  They can be such amazing animals, especially if you think you know what they are thinking.  Many times you will be wrong.   LOL 

HELL WEEK IS OVER.....!!!

 No checkered flag, and no trophy, but a win is a win.....!!

We're glad we did the 6 race nights in 10 days, BUT, we are REALLY glad it's over.  Last night I didn't run the heat race, because the night before my radiator got ruined.  John dug thru his junk pile and came up with a radiator that had been fixed with epoxy, and put it in.  John thought it would be best if I didn't run the heat race, just in case the "fix" didn't stay fixed.  

 THE O2 CAR IS GETTING READY TO GO FOR A FREE RIDE SIDEWAYS ALL THE WAY TO THE NUMBER 1 CORNER..!!!  HE WAS IN 1ST, I'M IN 2ND, SO IT WOULD HAVE BEEN VERY RUDE TO NOT LET HIM GO.............EVENTUALLY.......!!!  LOL

I finished 4th in the main with no leaks, so that junk radiator has been moved up to spare.  I have to order a new one today, John wants one he can trust.  He finished 6th, with the poor little Toyota, one night he finish 3rd, so we really had a good week.  I had 2 first, 2 seconds and 2 fourths out of 6 races.  I might have done better last night but John lost control of the Toyota when I was passing him and ended up impaled on the front of my car sideways for awhile.  Somewhat like 02 above.  LOL  

Gigi is still laying down quite a bit, but seems to still be doing pretty good, considering.  Both of them are doing pretty good on changing over to bermuda hay.  John has a little over a bale of alfalfa hay left so we're hoping by the time it's gone they will be changed over.  Then maybe we can start figuring out how to get Rosie on a diet.  She needs to lose about 200 pounds, so it will take awhile.  

I'm sure the donkeys will be happy that Hell Week is over too.  A couple of days they stayed in their pens all day, because the races started so early, it wasn't worth letting them out and then putting them back in.  At least that was our theory, not sure they agreed with us. 

Haven't heard back from the lady about the mini mules, so they will probably be going to their foster home, as soon as we get the time and energy to haul them. 

EVERY DAY IS BETTER FOR GIGI..........!!!

 

This morning when I went out with her bute/molasses in a syringe, John was busy elsewhere so I decided to give it to her myself.  I did that once before with no problem.  Well, times have changed and she is feeling well enough to not only keep her butt turned to me, no matter how or where I moved, but threw a healthy kick my way as a warning.  Hmmmm..........this is the type of behavior we have come to expect from Rosie, but up to now Gigi had been pretty mellow.  Just couldn't work with her at all, I finally just stood and told her if she wanted that "yummy" stuff, she'd have to come get it.  It was a long process, but she got her bute.  

Courtney and Martha are coming out next week for trims and Martha will give Gigi a massage at least that is the plan.  With this personality change it might get interesting.  Our corral panels are still loaned out till at least the end of the month, so Doug had offered some he isn't using.  Guess we'll take him up on the offer, if nothing else we'll need to build a "redneck" squeeze to corral these girls in.  

Rosie is doing pretty good on changing over to Bermuda hay.  Yesterday morning when John went out to round them up, he heard a lot of noise coming from the hay barn area.  When he investigated he found BlackJack and Boaz had tore down the gate.  That isn't as bad as it sounds, the bottom rail had rusted out and is one of those "round to it" projects, that John hadn't gotten around to yet.  That is part of the gate frame that keeps it square, and they figured out if they pushed on it, it would bend. 

A bunch of donkeys were still outside because they couldn't figure out how to get around BJ and Boaz to get to the primary objective which was.............. the alfalfa for the girls.....!!!  So John had to run the boys out, and temporarily fix it so they couldn't get in there again.  So far so good, hopefully John can get it fixed as soon as our "RACING WEEK FROM HELL" is over. 

This racing 6 nights in 10 days isn't that easy.  Last night was a little rough.  We had 12 cars which is more than any other night.  John and the Toyota got used as a target by one of the cars and got pushed head on into another car.  I had ran my heat race and was in the pits.  Here he came with one of the front fenders sticking straight out from the car.  I thought it was funny, him..........not so much......!!! LOL  John ripped the fender off, and ran the main without it.  He's not even going to try to fix it, in fact we left it at the track.  We brought the Kia home, so he could check it over and reattach the back bumper, poor little Toyota isn't even worth checking over I guess...........!!!!  I finished 4th, after following and bumping one of the other cars.  Her car and my car are pretty evenly matched, so whichever one is in front of the other usually stays there.  This morning John said the whole front bumper was covered with pink paint.  I spent the whole race playing with her rear bumper, so I wasn't surprised.......!!!  Guess I need to quit playing and get serious, I never did get around her......SIGH! 

GIGI IS IMPROVING EVERYDAY........!!!

She will never  be perfect and she will always have to have regular trimming, but it looks like she might have a chance at a life without as much pain as she had.  She really looks forward to her little bute infused molasses treat twice a day.  She's figured out how to get it without trying to swallow the syringe.  That was really scary, she had her teeth clamped on the syringe and wasn't going to let go.  

We are separating them during the day, and it seems to be working out good.  Rosie only has bermuda to eat and she's actually eating some of it.  At night when they are together they get a mixture of alfalfa and bermuda.  I don't think there is a chance of Rosie not eating, she seems to know how to eat just fine.  I don't know exactly how long we will have to feed her alfalfa, to alleviate an occurrence of  hyperlipidemia.  I think as long as she continues to eat, she will be OK.  

We had a couple of women come out today to look at the mini mules.  One was originally looking for donkeys, her husband had donkeys when he was a kid and loves them.  So I don't know what she might end up with.  Molly really worked the woman, stayed right in her hip pocket.  If she doesn't take the mules, an excellent foster home turned up earlier this week, so either way it looks like they will be leaving.  We'll miss them, whoever ends up with them will have a lot of fun, I'm sure. 

Racing last night went very well from my point of view, I only finished 4th in the heat race, but I WON the main event.............. Yippee..........finally.....!!!  It was nice to be given 1st place last Saturday, but it's much better to actually win it.   John and the poor little Toyota finished last, that car is just too tired to be competitive.  He says he's having fun, so I guess that's what it's all about. 

We're coming down to the wire on this special event, if the cars stay together, we will race Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday late afternoon.  Three events in a row without a break.  There's no way we'd not be there, but we'll both be glad when it's over......!!  

The donkeys stayed in all day yesterday and Lysa doesn't pick up poo on Thursday, so John has been busy today and still isn't finished.  I hope he gets done before tomorrow.........!! LOL

GET A BREAK UNTIL WEDNESDAY......!!!!!

John managed to get the Kia operational for last night's races.  Amazing what he can do sometimes.  We picked up a power steering belt on the way to the track and he put it on there.  

It ran pretty good, I won the heat race and finished 2nd in the main.  Got beat by a 12 year old kid.  They asked him his age in front of the grandstands, wonder if they'll do that to me  if and when I really win a race....???  LOL  The videos are on You-Tube already and I think I need to work on my manners a little bit.  No one said anything to me, but I was a little rough sometimes, even booted John one time, when I was passing him.  One of the big cars was parked next to us in the pits, (yes we managed to grab a place to park, by leaving the van and Toyota parked there overnight Saturday night) and the guys asked John how it is to be in a race with your wife.  I'm trying to talk John into buying a better Hornet, so he can race all the time.  But he says he doesn't want to try to keep 2 cars going, and I can see his point.  So I guess when this special event is over, he'll retire again.  

Gigi is really doing good I think.  She still lays down a lot, but everyday she is up more.  We are separating them during the day, Rosie gets to stay in Quilla's pen, next door.  That way Gigi gets a chance to eat.  Rosie didn't get 200 pounds overweight by sharing food.  We have to run her in there when I give Gigi her bute twice a day.  Rosie is bound and determined to get some of whatever is being offered.  Gigi likes her "molasses" treat, she sticks her tongue out trying to get more.  I do believe she is walking a little better, probably getting her new feet figured out. 

NAME CHANGE.......!!!

You probably knew this was going to happen.  John never could remember Kia's name, he was sorta OK with Sephia.  But long term it didn't work, soooooooo they are now Rosie and GiGi.  John had suggested Rosie at first.  But it seems like a lot of these "pinks" ie strawberry roans are named Rosie, so I wasn't thrilled with such a common name.  But with Rosie as her name we can call her Reactive Rosie....!!!  She will come right up to you and get in your face.  But if you walk towards her she takes off like a race horse.  Never had one do this before, we've had them that didn't want you in their space, but not one that almost goes thru the corral panels and then will go up to you nose to nose.

Gigi is the one with the feet.  Tyler just came by to take the 1st of weekly pictures for a special study he's doing.  He said he needs to have 3 different difficult cases to follow from beginning to end.  He is amazed at she is doing as well as she is.  She's walking on the foot that was so twisted and now has an elongated shoe on it, so she can't turn it under like she's done probably her whole life.  

He said the muscles and tendons are all involved and hopefully with time will get a little longer.  She spends most of her time laying down which is to be expected.  But she does get up and move around a little bit.  She may have to wear a elongated shoe the rest of her life, just depends on how much those tendons and muscles can stretch. 

Cisco is doing good after his bout of choke last Thursday.  He's still on antibiotics in case there was some damage done to his esophagus with the plug of hay and the poking and prodding with a tube to break it up.  He seems to be OK, but is still on mush only, no hay.  

Last night was the 1st race night of 6 over the next 2 weeks.  We took both cars, so John can play too.  I don't know how many cars there were in the pits, but it was full, we had to pit in the parking lot.....!!!  LOL  Along with a lot of other cars.  

John is out in the driveway right now trying to get the my car operational for tonight.  In the heat race one of the other cars ran off the track and rather than blend with the on coming traffic, he kept his foot in it and flew across the track heading for the infield.  My car stopped him from getting to the infield and pretty much straightened him out on the track......!!!   LOL  I kept going but my car would no longer turn to the right at all, unless you had a gorilla to turn the wheel.  Good thing we run left on the track, I guess.  

I finished 2nd in that race and John finished 3rd.  John didn't believe me when I said it wouldn't turn right, until he drove it.  He said to just go out take the green flag, so I'd get paid for starting the main.  Well, it wasn't too bad going left, so I managed to hang on and place 2nd with John in 3rd again.  They shortened our races from 20 laps to 12, which I am really grateful for, it was still a bear to wrestle.  

One of the tech inspectors came over to me later and asked where I finished, I told him 2nd.  He said well you've just been put into 1st place because the 1st place car didn't go to tech.  Not the way I want to win, but I'll take it.  Unfortunately the guy had already had the trophy presentation in front of the grandstands and as of now still has it.  They said they'd get it back from him today, so we'll see.  It's been a long dry spell, I won my last trophy in 1980, so I'm overdue.  

Most of the officials last night were with the big fancy expensive cars.  When I went to get paid, we all were discussing how petty it was to hang onto the trophy when you've been disqualified, etc.  Then the guy looked at me and said, "is it true you are 72?"   I told him no, I was only 70...!!! LOL

John thinks the problem, hopefully the only problem, is the power steering pulley which is rather badly bent, we don't even know what happened to the belt, it's gone.  So he is out there, trying to beat this thing into some semblance of perfectly round.  If he can do anything with it, we'll pick up a belt on the way to the track, so John will have something to do when we get there.  If not, he wants me to drive the Toyota and I want him to drive it.  He gets a lot more out of it than I do, I have to rely on power, which it doesn't have.  He has a little more finesse on the track, so I don't know who will end up driving it the Kia doesn't make it.

NO ANIMAL SHOULD HAVE TO PUT UP WITH THIS.....!!!

This is what Sephia had to go thru today because the the lack of basic foot care for probably all her life.  Tyler seems to think, because both feet on her right side grow out to the side, that her problems started "in vitro", because of the way she was carried.  In these situations usually 2 or 3 weeks of casts or braces fixes the problem with little newborns.  Unfortunately that did not happen for her.  

The x-rays showed some areas of concern, but nothing dramatic, so she got a happy shot, actually she got 3 total.  It took awhile to get her feet hacked off, at one time 2 farriers were each working on a foot to speed up the process.

The decision was made to work on her in the trailer so she wouldn't have to get out and get in.  It cuts down on working area, but in the long run, I don't know if we could have got her back in the trailer afterwards.  Her feet were so different after trimming, one of them with an elongated shoe, that she couldn't hardly stand up, let alone do anything taking experience to accomplish.

We had to wait for her to get over the effects of the sedatives which took quite sometime.  When we started out, it was clear that the trip was going to be traumatic for us all.   I rode in the trailer with her, and John drove at about 20 mph with instructions to not use the brakes if at all possible.  For some reason even using them as lightly as possible made her really scramble to keep her balance.  She was covered with sweat and it was dripping on the floor, she was so stressed, poor girl.  I don't know which of us was happiest to get home.  

I know she is going to be sore, besides changing her feet, she also spent a lot of time, flipping and flopping around in the trailer.  Although it is 6 foot wide, there was usually a wall or gate in her way when she was trying to get up.  

BUT WHAT A DIFFERENCE................!!!!

Never dull around here, unfortunately

This morning John noticed Cisco wasn't eating and had clear mucus or saliva coming out of his nose.  He hadn't even tried to eat, and wasn't retching like they usually do with a choke.  So we watched him for awhile and nothing changed.  

Dr. Nancy doesn't work on Thursday.  I called Dr. Shamis and he is having issues with his 95 year old Mother and couldn't help today.  I told John I was trumped by a 95 year old, my Mother is only 90. 

Called Adobe Vet Clinic in Tucson and they said bring him in.  Anna got here to stay with Mother, we got him loaded and away we went.  Spent the whole afternoon there, she tubed him 3 times before she felt comfortable having us take him home.  At one time she was talking about taking him to Gilbert if it wouldn't clear.  

So now he has to be on antibiotics for a week, Banamine for 3 days, and no food for 48 hours.  We didn't get home until after dark and poor Cisco got to see everyone else get fed except him.  He let John know this wasn't right.  Wait until tomorrow morning and night, and Saturday morning.  

This was right down at the top of the stomach and she said he probably choked last night because he had hay mixed in the liquid he was bringing up and he didn't eat this morning.  That means the hay at the bottom of the choke, probably dried out over the 10 hours or so before this morning and made a very effective plug.  

We're still on for take Sephia into Dr. Nancy's tomorrow morning for x-rays and Tyler to work on those nasty feet.  I sure hope there's some good feet under all that over growth.  

Poor Anna, doesn't know what she's in for...........LOL  She may end up spending more time with Mother than I do for the foreseeable future. 

SO FAR, SO GOOD........!!!

The girls are getting along just fine.  They are alert, curious, and although we don't feed apples, like they are use to, they seem to think carrots, animal crackers and Tums are a good substitute.  We try to make sure Sephia doesn't have to walk too far to get her treats.  They aren't real thrilled to have us walk towards them, but they have no problem walking to us.  

 

As you can see Sephia is in pretty good shape, not too fat.  Thank goodness extra weight on those feet would really be uncomfortable for her. 

 

Kia is another story.  As you can see she needs to lose a lot of weight.  John is feeding them 12 pounds of hay a day, 8 pounds of alfalfa and 4 pounds of Bermuda.  They really don't "hoover" it up, although I have noticed Kia spends a lot more time eating than Sephia does. 

They are not finishing the 12 pounds of hay, so we will start dropping them back to 10 pounds which should be enough for them.  They will have to be fed separately I'm afraid.  When they no longer have access to more hay than they can eat, I would imagine Kia will be in charge of who eats what, and she'll be eating most of it.  Got to get our corral panels back before we can do any separating. 
 

I think Kia is part beaver, this is her handiwork.  She isn't really eating the wood, you can see the splinters laying on the ground.  But at the rate she is going the shelter isn't going to be standing pretty soon.......!!!   LOL 

It wouldn't be so bad, but this morning Quilla was helping her from his side.  Geesh!  She doesn't need to be teaching him her bad habits.  I didn't really notice much wood in their shed, so I'm not sure where she developed this irritating behavior. 

This is Boaz's knee this morning.  I'm still using the new balm and powder and it is getting better.  Got my fingers crossed for healing.  Not sure what the white spot is, it was actually there before I started with the balm and is a little larger, doesn't seem to match the rest of the tissue around it. 

IT'S NOT PRETTY.....!!!

But we're already getting our ducks lined up to try to help her.  On the way home from picking them up we stopped by Tyler's house.  He's real lucky, we drive by his house every time we go someplace...!! LOL  

The plan of attack is to get her back in the trailer this Friday.  Should be "interesting", she had never been out of the pen she was born in 11 years ago, and with these feet loading was difficult.  It actually went much better than we expected, but once she was in the trailer, she couldn't hardly stand up on the mats, because of walking on slick hoof material, rather than sole and frog.

John drove very slow all the way home and I'm sure she was having to fight to stand, but she never lost her balance.  

Friday we will haul her into Dr. Nancy, this is when a mobile vet would REALLY be nice to have.  SIGH!  Tyler will be there, and she'll take x-rays so he has an idea of what he's dealing with.  Then he'll get out the sawz-all and start removing as much of the extra growth as he can. With horses they usually gnaw the excess off a little at a time, over time.  With donkeys they usually just take it all off at once, which really freaks out horse people.  But in the long run the quicker you get it off, hopefully the less internal damage. 

She moves around, is alert and if we can give her some quality of life, that's what we'll do.  

I was so interested in getting pictures of these feet I didn't get a picture of the older over weight jenny.  Just take my word for it, she's fat, lots of large pones and a pretty good size bubble butt.  Hopefully we can get some of the weight off her.  The owner had 3 bales of alfalfa, and we brought it home to transition them from alfalfa to bermuda hay over the next few weeks.  She's fat enough she probably has fatty liver disease, and if we tried to stop feeding alfalfa all at once, chances are she would develop hyperlipidemia which can be fatal.    You haven't lived until a vet comes out with a tube of blood, reaches down into it with a paper clip and draws out a glob of yellow fat, as big around as the tube and over an inch long.   Looked like a big fat grub worm...........UGH!

The older jenny was named Jenny and the one with the feet was Betty.  We've already had a Jenny and have a good friend named Betty, so we're going to give them different names.  I went thru a lot of different names, so far the front runner is, Kia for the older jenny and Sephia for the younger one.  My race car is a Kia Sephia.......!!! John just shook his head.  It's not final, so if anyone has some good names for these girls, let me know.  

Speaking of the race car, the next 2 weeks are going to be murder.  This time of year in sunny Arizona is when our track has a big race program for Late Models and Modifieds that usually run in Canada, and the east.  Needless to say their weather isn't conducive to racing now.  That's all fine and dandy, but they've decided to add some of the local classes to the program, so the "big" boys have time to work on their cars between races.  We are suppose to run 6 programs in 9 days....!!!  I think they are trying to kill off all the old people out there.....!!!  They are paying extra and also we will get back our entry fee if we make the main event, so now John is going to take the Toyota and race it too............  At least that's what he says now, we'll see if that sounds like fun, after the first couple of races, he might change his mind.  LOL 

I've found someone to take care of Mother, which is a load off my mind.  Anna lives on the next road north of us, so the 2am drive home won't be as big a problem as driving back to Benson would be.  I was afraid Mother would get feisty about having someone stay with her, but she seems to be fine with it........  Whew...!!! 

JUST WHAT WE NEED, TWO MORE DONKEYS.....

Well unfortunately they were going to get shot and buried with a backhoe.  I guess there are worse things, but a couple of different people got involved, called us, and even though we're over our "self imposed" limit, this is what we do.

Right now our extra panels are loaned out, so we absolutely do not have another pen, which is a problem.  We're going to "try" feeding Ruthie and Boaz outside the pens and put the new girls in their pen.  We also have a friend that has some panels we can borrow, so we'll see how it goes.  

One of the girls is around 11 and the other one is older.  The older one has fat pones and a bubble butt from being fed alfalfa and too much of it.  The younger one has got some really nasty feet that will take some of Tyler's expertise probably.  

They are both wild as March hares, this video is as close as I could get and you can see they weren't thrilled at all......!!! 

They belonged to the man's father who died last year, and he's been taking care of them, unfortunately feeding them alfalfa and too much of it.  

So wish us luck for tomorrow, Doug our go to guy is going with us, and the neighbor who was going to be executioner and owns the backhoe will be there too.  He is very relieved we're going to take them, because he didn't want to do it.  I don't think the caretaker wanted it either, but he didn't know what else to do with them.  Hopefully between us all we can get them in the trailer.  They are going to get them in a smaller area by a gate tonight, so we won't have to chase them all over the place.