SAWMILL FIRE

A few days ago a man made fire in the Sonoita area SW of us started and has now burned over 20,000 acres.  Yesterday was a very windy day and the fire has been moving fast thru the grasslands in that area.  

Yesterday afternoon we got a call from Kris, who lives between us and the fire.   Kris and Jim love mules and a couple of years ago started fostering Rusty and Reba for us.  Unfortunately last year Rusty had to be put down at the age of 37.  To make a long story short, they have been fostering Gizmo, the mini mule, along with Reba and their mule Pooh Bear.  

They are in a pre-evacuation area, have a 2 horse trailer with 3 mules, even though Gizmo isn't very big, there's no way 3 animals could be hauled in a 2 horse trailer.  

So John, Linda and I headed out with the stock trailer, while Doug and Lynn stayed back here to get ready for "new guests".  Lynn hooked up their stock trailer and we let the Sheriff's office know we have stock trailers, will haul.  The local livestock sale barn is a place people can haul their animals if they don't have friends with space for their animals.  

It went really well, considering we got there after dark, with flashlights and expecting them to hop into the trailer, which they did, without a lot of drama.  Well except for Gizmo, deciding he didn't want to play the game, jerked away from Linda and away he went.  He made a mistake by going into one of the corrals, so then we put 2 leads on him and John and Jim got on either side and he realized the game was over......!!  LOL

We only had one empty pen and it was Gizmo's old pen, so in he went.  We were going to throw BlackJack out of his pen, but Linda said Leddy's pen was big enough to split and he's pretty mellow.  So BJ kept his pen, and Leddy became an vagabond.  

This morning at feeding time, Leddy was a little confused.  He couldn't get in his pen, because the girls were in there.  You could almost read his body language, of confusion.  When the hay showed up he dove right in, but took time out to follow the golf cart, up to the hay barn when the guys went up to get the buckets ready for tonight's feeding.  

THIS IS TURBO AND SMOKEY JOE CHECKING OUT GIZMO.......THANKS LINDA

GIZMO ENJOYING HIS BREAKFAST THIS MORNING

REBA AND POOH BEAR WAITING PATIENTLY FOR BREAKFAST.  WE SEPARATED THEM TO EAT, REBA EATS SLOW AND POOH BEAR DOESN'T........!! 

REBA LOOKS PRETTY GOOD FOR AGE 34......!!

I HOPE THAT TONGUE ISN'T A JUDGEMENT OF POOH'S LIFESTYLE CHANGE...!!  LOL

POOR LEDDY DOESN'T HAVE A PEN TO CALL HIS OWN........AS LONG AS FOOD IS AVAILABLE, I DON'T THINK HE CARES............!!!!

Dr. Jeremy came out yesterday morning to do health certificates for the 4 going to Colorado, probably Monday and to draw blood for Coggins test, which is necessary to cross state lines.  While he was here I picked his brain about skin issues and he says what I'm doing is about as good as anything.

He also checked Gus.  Gus has never dropped to pee and lately he's started dribbling.  Dr. Jeremy said he might have a bean. Donkeys aren't as bad about developing a bean as horses, but considering he never drops anyway, it's highly possible that he has "gunk".  So Dr. Jeremy tried to "investigate" the problem and found out why he has never dropped.  The sheath opening is very restricted, he couldn't even get 2 fingers up far enough to check for a bean.  So we are looking for a small nozzle to put on the hose to hopefully "flush" enough to get rid of a bean, if that's the problem.  He is so easy to work with, yesterday John "flushed" him a little bit, but we're waiting to find a small nozzle to really get up in there, poor guy.