GETTING COLD AROUND HERE.........!!

Especially at night, I've been threatening to put flannel sheets on the bed....!!  I really hate to jump into a cold bed, even if it heats up pretty quick.  Never liked jumping in a swimming pool either.  LOL 

The days are absolutely gorgeous, the type of weather people come to Arizona to enjoy.  The hummingbirds and nectar bats have left.  John is still putting out sugar water for the bees.  There aren't many flowers out there for bees this time of year and they literally cover the feeder all day long.  

People coming out to see the donkeys has picked up the last week or so.  During the summer we don't have many people come out, which works out well.  The donkeys usually eat their breakfast and find a shade tree to stand under until it's time for evening feeding.  Once the winter visitors aka Snowbirds or as John calls them with their huge RVs "the Mammoth migration", we usually have a steady stream of people wanting to see the donkeys.  A lot of them come back year after year and remember their favorite donkeys.  

Had an interesting group come out yesterday to see the donkeys.  There was a conference in Tucson last week-end of people from all over the world, sharing information on equine Cushings.  I think just about everyone I know locally went.............except me........!!  My dear friend Patti set up a day of entertainment for anyone that wanted to go, to come out and visit the donkeys and go to Tombstone to look around.  There were a couple of farriers, both Germany and Australia were represented and I think they enjoyed meeting the donkeys.  They were very interested in how Gus's banana shoes are working and of course since most of our donkeys have health issues there was a lot to talk about the different issues they have.  John let the donkeys out of their pens as we went on to the next one, so we ended up with quite an entourage showing them around.  Well, except for the die hards, that immediately headed for the gate into Burroland and again Gus was at the front of the line.......... He is really walking good.

John explaining his hay feeding routine

They really liked the stock and the idea that it is adjustable for different size animals

Coquette making sure no one has treats, she was quite determined that someone must have something.  Of course she loves to be petted too, so it wasn't a total loss for her to stay with the "tour"

 

Sunday we took Casper to his new home.  

This is his new friend on the right, a really nice tri-colored intact jack.  They really seemed to like each other, which leads me to really believe that Casper is a hinny rather than a mule, with a donkey mother.

This little wild man is across the alley between the pens.  He ran and bucked and kicked, really a high energy little guy

 

These 2 are directly to the left of Casper, the black one stuck his nose thru the fence and Casper bit him.  Casper did seem a little more accepting of horses than he was when we got him.  At least he wasn't challenging with his mouth wide open and screaming at the top of his lungs..........!!!   LOL  But he still seemed to prefer the donkey.

Bryan is primarily interested in training Casper to pull a little cart.  He knows that if it doesn't work out we will take him back, no problem.  So I'll keep in touch to see how he is doing.  Bryan has probably 10-12 horses, minis and full size, so not sure how much one on one time Casper will get. 

TOMORROW IS THE BIG DAY FOR CASPER

I must say this last week has been interesting.  Rather than take him back over to the neighbor's for this week before we take him to his new home, we decided to just keep him here in the "Casper proof" pen and we have.  

But in the process I've made an observation.  When the week started getting his fly mask off or on was impossible, evasive doesn't even begin to explain the problem.  John ended up leaving it on at night because he wasn't up to the "dance" in the dark.  

I decided I'd try taking it off at chore time when it's still light.  The 1st night was a "goat rope" of dancing and ducking, but after about 10 minutes he let me get hold of the fly mask and take it off.  Next morning maybe 9 minutes, that night 8 etc.  And in the process he let John also put it on and take it off.  

To make a long story short he seems to have made a decision within that little crafty mind, that we are going to be honest with him and not try to pull a fast one.  I told John if he'd stay inside the perimeter fence I'd be a "foster failure" and keep him............LOL  I absolutely love to watch his reaction to things.  Unfortunately though he really needs a job and Bryan plans on training him to pull a little cart, so this will be best for him.  

This morning was a fun, fun time.  First of all Janet a good friend that use to live in the neighborhood stopped by on her way from Mexico  to Yuma.  Hadn't seen her in years, in fact I think the last time was when I went down and spent a week or so with her in Mexico and really enjoyed it.  She lives in a town that has expats, BUT not enough to destroy the reason they all like living there, the Mexican way of life.  

Just as Janet was getting ready to leave, Claire and her son and girlfriend drove in to visit with Gus.  Claire hadn't seen him in awhile and I must say he entertained them with his antics.  So did the others, we let them out of the pens and they headed immediately for the gate to Burroland, actually Gus was 1st in line to go thru.  Unfortunately the gate wasn't opening because we are going to races tonight and will be feeding early.  I think they enjoyed the donkeys and the donkeys always enjoy having people visit, Claire even brought special treats for everyone.

Linda sent some Halloween pictures from Colorado

Boaz sure knows how to work the system...!!!  LOL

CASPER HAS A NEW HOME

 This is Bryan introducing himself to Casper.  It went pretty well, Casper was evasive as usual, but he did meet Bryan half way and was willing to hang around if Bryan wanted to scratch him.  
 

Bryan has worked with mules, mini horses, has a cart and harness and is willing to work with the little devil.  We'll deliver him next Sunday and hopefully this will work out as a long term home.  He needs to be with someone that knows equine, especially mules and has patience.  I've known Bryan's ex-wife for years and in fact had met him years ago when they were still married.  I think this might be a good fit for both of them. 

FINGERS CROSSED FOR CASPER

I asked a couple of my friends that run in horsey circles of showing and driving, if they knew of anyone that might be interested in a "mini" project.  Stacy jumps, shows and also drives minis...and has friends in all those areas, so I thought she might have some ideas, either of someone to do some training, or someone wanting to have a permanent little friend with a lot of moxy, A LOT OF MOXY.......!!! LOL

Got a call yesterday from Stacy's ex-husband who is also involved in horsey stuff and he is coming out tomorrow to look Casper over.  Don't know yet for what, but I'm willing to show him off and see what happens.  

John called our neighbor Vic, that has been Casper sitting because he has field fence and said we would be over this morning after chores to bring Casper over here for tomorrow's viewing.  Right after chores Vic came to the house and said he decided to bring Casper over for us, but couldn't catch him.  Casper's life at Vic's has been one of running loose on 10 acres doing whatever he wanted to.  Not good for a smart quick little guy with attitude, in other words he's gone wild.  Vic decided that Casper would probably just follow him, so off they went into Burroland...........well until Casper decided enough of following the human, there's a whole world out there and off he went.  

By the time Vic got to the house to tell us Casper was out there somewhere, and we went out to find him, he was over by the pens looking around and eating some weeds our guys had missed.  We had planned on walking behind him to move him towards his old pen and hopefully get him in it.  

All of a sudden he noticed something new, that hadn't been here before, the new pen John and Doug put in for Leo, when Lynn and Linda come back in November.  Being the nosy little critter he is, he had to go investigate it...........from the inside.....Vic took off running and got the gate closed before Casper figured out he was in a pen.  YEA.......!!!!  It wasn't where we wanted him to be, but it was certainly better than chasing him all over Cochise county...........LOL

John's still got to do some work on Boaz's gate, it's missing some clamps.  And Leo will need a shelter before the rainy season.

John and I went in to put a halter on him, which wasn't what he had planned for today.  He's not mean but he can be very evasive.  We kept working with him and it just took a few minutes for him to stand still and let me put a halter on him.  Maybe he remembers I don't give up...............LOL

John led him to his old pen and we decided to go ahead and take his halter off, even though it's a battle to get it back on, hopefully each time will be a little easier.  

 Casper looks like he's been feeding himself really good

                  He's probably thinking, down there is where I went in that pen I'd never seen before............bad move.

Everyone seems to be doing good right now.  John is taking fly masks off, when he lets them out at bedtime, it's chilly enough in the morning the flies aren't too bad.  No more doctoring and no more leggings on anyone.  

They are up to being out during the day from after breakfast to roundup for evening feeding.  We tried opening up the dog pen, so they could go in and clean up the weeds.  Unfortunately the only ones that found the open gate were the fatties and they weren't interested in the weeds, they were interested in the mesquite beans that had been behind a fence.  It was like finding the mother lode, for Pepsi and Bill, neither of which need any extra calories, so the gate is closed again.  Not sure what we will do about that little problem, the dogs will use the pen when they get here, but hopefully they won't eat the beans. We've been finding raccoon scat and it is about 99% mesquite beans, in the desert almost all the animals eat the beans when they are available.  Valuable calories for those that need the extras, unfortunately the donkeys don't need any extra calories at all, but they sure think they do. 

RACING SEASON IS OVER.........!!!

 Still have not heard from Dave about the little baby burro........

Saturday night went well, I finished both main events with my straightened race car and it did just fine.  Well, except for jumping out of gear a few times.  When we got it back from getting straightened, with John's messed up hand, he and Larry just made sure it was back together.  Unfortunately one of the motor mounts probably got torn up when I hit the wall and was allowing the transmission to move around and jump out of gear.  

In both races I had managed to move up on the 3rd place car and was in the process of passing, when it jumped out of gear, which besides being a surprise, takes valuable time to push in on the clutch and shift back into 3rd.  The 1st time I pushed on the brake first, which doesn't help at all......!!!   LOL  So I finished 4th in both races.  This morning they posted the end of the year points and I finished in 3rd as we expected.  The banquet is in January and probably in late Feb or early March we can start the new season.   The two guys that finished 1st and 2nd are moving up to another class, so maybe I'll have a chance for a championship next year.  Either that or I'll be so old and creaky I won't be able to climb in the window opening..........LOL  John says if that happens, he'll cut the opening down to give me more room, he's always so helpful..........!!!  

I think we've decided to race this car rather than build a new car and John wants to have the motor freshened, so he'll be busy even though we aren't racing.  He's also planning on having a roll cage put in the Neon we got last week over the winter, just in case I need a backup.  I'm going to have enough race cars to have my own race, if I can find enough drivers, at this rate..........LOL

His hand is still pretty swollen and we think it might have a crack, the x-ray missed.  He was going to go in this morning and have it looked at, but decided he'd wait for awhile.  I could take the stitches out today, but since it's still swollen I'll wait too........!!!  

Got to use our new "donkey" stock this week.  We had it made last spring and they took measurements, but it was still not really convenient for the donkeys, since they come in different sizes.  I got in touch with the company that made it, and for some reason they weren't as eager to fix it as they had been to build it.  I called a few times and basically gave up.  Our neighbor Vic talked to Tyler the farrier and they agreed on a plan.  

Just got it back the day before Tyler came and he was really pleased with the changes.  Vic was here to show off  the "tricks" it has and we're all of the opinion it's a better fix than we would have gotten with the company anyway.

We will use it for the cripples and the cranky ones.  Gigi and Penny both are a real handful when it comes to giving up possession of their feet.  I was worried about whether the ones with feet issues could "jump" up in it or if they even would.  In fact John buried it in the ground when we first got it.  But we had 3 of them in it while Tyler was here and none of them had a problem getting on it.  And they were much easier to work on, it's almost like once they are in the stocks they give up the fight........which is a good thing....!! 

Penny knows the sound of Tyler's truck and also Dr. Jeremy's truck.  She is not a fan of either of them and we usually try to get a halter on her before she gets a chance to hear the truck coming down the road.  Tyler was early and we hadn't got her haltered.  When it came time she decided, "no halter today, thank you".  She can be a formidable  opponent.  Tyler has a helper that is very tall, very young and very strong.  He grabs a halter and off he goes into battle.  For a few minutes it looked like he might have met his match.  She was rearing up over his head and he was hanging on.  He's strong enough that he could direct her flying feet away from him and she finally gave up.  She was so mad she wouldn't even take a cookie from anyone for awhile............  She followed John to the stock and hopped up like it was her idea and later on after getting her feet trimmed, decided to take cookies if offered.  LOL

We decided to wait a while longer before letting the donkeys over on Burroland all day.  We might not see many beans, but when we do poo 101 there is a lot of beans in some of the poo and of course it is the ones that are already fat.  So they are only getting 5 hours a day, and they are still on short rations.  Haven't seen any ribs yet, so I guess they are doing OK............!!!  

Last night John got a big surprise when he went to let the donkeys out at bedtime.  He always checks to make sure everyone ate their supper.  When he went to check Penny's there was a rattlesnake right by her feeder, she had already left the area.  John said at first he thought it had a piece of hay in it's mouth, but that turned out to be what was left of a mouse that was headed down his throat, the end of the tail.  YUCK....!!!  They are so vulnerable when they are in the process of eating and can eject a possibly hard earned meal if they feel threatened enough to feel the need to bite.  John quickly backed off and closed the gate, so none of the donkeys could get in the pen.  We get a little casual about checking for snakes sometimes, this time of year they are moving around and getting ready to hibernate and we really should be on guard, but sometimes we forget. 

NO NEWS ABOUT THE BABY

I am hoping  Dave got in touch with A.E.R.O in Phoenix and is getting help with the little guy.  I wish I had his phone number, but I neglected to get it and don't have caller ID.  He seemed to be highly motivated to help the baby, so I am hoping he has found help locally.

We've had a slight bump in the road of life this week.  John and I found another Neon coupe that had been wrecked, but has a lot of good stuff on it.  We brought it home and John was messing with it, and the hood fell on his left hand.  A trip to the ER, a few stitches and he seems to be accepting his fate graciously.  Still working on cars and has even messed with that one again.  Over the years I have learned to not be around when John does things like this, he focuses on what he is trying to accomplish and doesn't bother to look the situation over and see what might happen if it doesn't go well.  I should have been forewarned, when he buried a treble fishing lure in my ear on our honeymoon.........!!!  LOL

We got the race car back and he was going to work on it the day he hurt his hand.  So he called our friend Larry to come help him.  They got it all together, I drove it around the driveway a couple of times and it felt OK.  Started to go out the gate to the road, and it made that horrible racket again.  John knew by now what it was, so they had to replace part of the differential.  Tried it again and it seems to be good, and the car tracks straight, so I will be racing it Saturday night.  We have 2 twenty lap main events, hope it lasts thru both of them.  That's the last race for this season, until probably February.  John hasn't decided if I'm going to race this year's car again next year........or if he's going to build one of the others.  If I do race this one, he wants to freshen the motor, although it seems to be running just fine, just wish it had a little more power, so I could beat the guys........LOL

Heard from Linda and she sent pictures......!!  They have snow on the ground in Colorado and it's kind of staying there.   My thermometer on the back porch says 93* right now....!!!  They plan on leaving around the 1st of November to head for Arizona and from what she says they have a lot planned between now and then.

Here is Leddy, Turbo, and Boaz, not sure where Leo and Quilla are.  I would imagine they are putting on heavy winter coats, which they will probably not need once they get down here. 

 

Linda and Quilla in the snow

 

Lynn is worried that the donkeys aren't getting enough to eat with this pasture.  They are feeding hay too, and can't understand why the donkeys prefer this old dried up weeds to hay.  Because this is their natural browse.  I have never seen Boaz's leg bracelets this prominent.

Linda says this is normal........!!!   LOL  Doesn't look very comfortable for her, although Saddik and Lennon look happy....!!!  LOL

The donkeys are up to 4-5 hours a day going into Burroland.  There isn't much left over there for them to eat, at least that we can see.  But they REALLY like going over there, so they must be finding something.  We are still having to go round them up, although it's getting easier every day.  John has to go find them, but once they start moving they come to the gate and go thru without deviating.  I've been standing by the gate to make sure and Doug puts them in the pens.  Well except for Smoky Joe.  He comes thru the gate just fine, but when it's time to go into his pen, it's a battle of wills, we usually make at least 2 trips around the pen area, before he gives up.....!!!

John said we probably can go ahead and let them into Burroland after breakfast starting next week.  Three of them have put on so much weight it will take all winter to get it off probably.  John has cut their hay to almost nothing and it certainly hasn't help them lose any weight and what's really bad is they don't seem to care that they are on short rations........!!!  LOL
 

HAVEN'T HEARD ANYTHING FROM DAVE ABOUT THE LITTLE ONE..........

WE MAY BE HEARING THE PATTER OF LITTLE FEET SOON

Just got a call from a man named Dave, that was camping in the Alamo Lake State park, about 90 miles west of Phoenix, with his family.  About half an hour before he called, they found a baby burro tangled in some barbed wire with no other burros around.  They got him to drink some water and were trying to get him to drink some cow's milk from a bowl with little success.  I guess he didn't have any wounds, just hadn't been able to get out of the wire.

I talked to him for awhile and it sounds like the little guy, is a guy, is probably less than a week old, only 2 upper teeth and a scab on his belly button.

Dave managed to get him to drink the milk out of a bowl, while we were talking, by sticking his fingers in the milk and playing with the little guy's mouth.  But it's cow's milk, which will give him diarrhea long term, and shouldn't be used as a replacement for equine.  He needs Foal-lac or some milk replacement made for baby equine.  Dave said he was headed home to Phoenix and was taking the baby with him.  He also said he was going to call a feed store close to where he lives to see if they would be open when he got there, or deliver the Foal-lac to his home if they closed.  I love a person that gets involved by jumping in with both feet, without hesitation .......!!!

I told him to call me tomorrow and we'd figure out a plan.  I think that means that we as a rescue will probably be taking the little guy in.  That should certainly liven up this "retirement" home.......!!  Well he will have plenty of "aunts and uncles" here to irritate.  We haven't had a little one since Wister and that's been about 5 years ago.

Stay tuned...............

POOR PENNY

Monday night Penny ate her supper good, but when John went out at bedtime to let everyone out, she was just standing and not interested in chasing John down for animal crackers.  Tuesday morning she was about the same and not interested in eating her breakfast.  

I love having Dr. Jeremy just a phone call away, for so many years we had to share our farm calls with a small animal clinic, which means if we had a sick animal, depending on how many clinic appointments were in the waiting room, our emergency might not get seen for hours.

If it was one of other donkeys I probably would have given her a shot of banamine and watched her for awhile.  But she had colic surgery 2 summers ago and I don't want to take a chance.  Called him and he came out, on his way from one appointment to another.  Penny is not a fan of vets, or farriers, she knows the sound of all of their trucks, so John put a halter on her before Dr. Jeremy got here.  And right now our stocks are off the property having some remodeling welding done.  They are much better than squeezing donkeys between 2 corral panels, but they needed some changes to make them really effective.  I called the company that built it 2 or 3 times, but I guess once out the door they aren't that interested in remodeling.  One of our neighbor's is a pretty good welder and said he'd fix it.  

So we had to squeeze her with corral panels.  She doesn't like that either.  Actually she doesn't like much of anything except animal crackers, the more the better.........LOL  Dr. Jeremy had to give her a happy shot before he could even exam her.  Then the "hated" tube up the nose and down to the stomach routine.  She actually wasn't as bad as she could have been without the shot.  He didn't find anything and her stomach was empty.  He put some mineral oil into her stomach, gave her a couple of shots and said watch her.  By afternoon, she had eaten a little of her breakfast mush and was tired of being penned up when everyone else was out and about.  

She was ready for her supper mush and we had planned on leaving her in her pen overnight, to watch for poo and to see how much water she would drink.  John went out at bedtime to let everyone but her out, came back in and said she was having a tantrum.  Since she had eaten, drank some water and pooed we decided that she'd probably be better off out than in and having a fit.  She seems back to normal this morning........WHEW.......!!!  I would imagine she probably had some gas colic, although it usually doesn't last hours and hours.  

We were going to leave the donkeys on the 10 acres today.  John's cousins Don and Carol from Fairbanks, Alaska are going to be in Benson overnight tonight and we're suppose to meet them for supper.  Since the donkeys don't see any reason to come in for supper, we figured it would be easier to round them up if they didn't go to Burroland.  Unfortunately the gate to Burroland got left open this morning.  We came home from town and there wasn't a donkey in sight.........So we'll have to do an early round up, still don't know what time we are suppose to meet for supper.  

Quite a difference in size huh?    The little one is really little.........!!!

The reason we were went to town was to deliver my race car to the guy with the frame jig to hopefully get it straightened enough that I can race it the 14th of Oct.  He seemed to think he can fix it, so we'll see. 

This picture was either taken a the start of the race, when I started beside the car that is in 1st place.  Or later on in the race when he lapped me...........LOL  It's a real nice dirt car, but not that great on asphalt.  Unfortunately we relied on the dirt track opening up again, as they said it would, and it looks like that isn't going to happen.  Just because people think they can do something, doesn't mean they can, so John basically wasted his time building the 2 dirt cars.  There isn't any other tracks within 300 miles that races the Hornets.  Maybe sometime in the future the dirt track will get some good leadership, but not any time soon. 

LOVELY WEATHER

I don't think we could ask for nicer weather.  Fall in the desert is wonderful, chilly nights and warm sunny days.  All the grasses and ground covers are dried up, but it won't be "winter" until the mesquite trees start shedding their leaves.  So far that isn't happening, it's usually in late November or early December.

The donkeys are a little less mad at us about time out and Burroland time.  They are up to 2 1/2 hours over in Burroland and actually aren't eating beans as much as we thought they would.  Although the beans still look pretty good, I guess they've been on the ground too long to really be tasty.  They do seem to think going into Burroland is a right and we aren't very smart.  I think they are also tired of short rations.  The other day Bill, Don, Buddy and BlackJack figured out how to break into the hay barn.  Don figured out how to push in the corral panels across the front of the barn and get them close enough to the hay that a head thru the panels on the end of a long neck could reach the hay bales enough to grab hay.  Doug and John had to put in more T-posts and finally stopped them.  

They spend most of their time after we let them out of the pens, standing over by the gate to Burroland.  I look at it like, if they are standing they aren't eating, so that's a good thing.  Unfortunately when it's time to come back over here for evening feeding, they have forgotten how to do it on their own, and we have to go get them.  Needless to say they aren't very cooperative and seem to know they can run much faster than people can.  And if they can't see the slow people behind them, it's OK to just run past the gate, rather than turning and coming over to the pen area.  Tula is very good at it, yesterday I was hiding by the gate, when she and her little band of about 6 followers came in ahead of John.  She's been just bypassing the gate, so  she was quite surprised when I hopped up, pointed where I wanted her to go and told her to git..........!!!  SHE GOT..........!!!!!   LOL  Sure would be nice if they would remember to come in on their own, so we don't have to chase them, maybe when they are out longer they'll be more cooperative.  

Lynn and Linda took Turbo and Leddy to a training session last week-end.  Turbo is learning to coon jump.  It's amazing how high donkeys and mules can jump from a standing start.  Maybe that will be more of his style than running, who knows.   I've often wondered once they learn to coon jump, how do you keep them in a fenced area.........LOL

I raced as planned Saturday night.  Brought the Kia home in one piece no major crisis', but it's not the car the Neon is.  I managed to finish 9th, I actually thought it was worse than that, seemed like everyone on the track passed me at least once......!!!  LOL  It's not an easy car to drive, and John came in this morning and thinks he's found out why.  The rear wheels aren't tracking in line with the front wheels.  

The Hornet lineup, the #18 parked on the left of the Kia is in first place for end of the year points and he won again Saturday night. 

At least the 2 brothers that seem to think pushing me into the wall is fun, left me alone and finished in front of me.   Oh! well, I'm still in 3rd place for end of the year points and John has figured points and thinks the 4th place car would have to win our next 2 races.  I don't think that will happen, the 2 cars in front of me for points are both really fast and are close enough in points that they aren't going to be very open to anyone getting in their space.  

John has made a date with a racer than has a frame jig to see if he can straighten the frame on the Neon this week.  If they can get it straightened and patch it together I'll probably drive it for the last 2 races the 14th of Oct.  He's also making arrangements to have the Kia aligned, so the rear wheels aren't doing their own thing.  It should make it a lot easier to drive.