WELL I REALLY DID IT THIS TIME.........!

There was 3 day racing at Tucson Speedway this week-end and we went out all 3 days to watch.  Well I watched John helped a couple of friends operate the roll-back wrecker.  If it's just a wreck they can haul it off with a regular "hook" wrecker.  But if the car is really wrecked, they use the roll-back to keep "parts" and fluids from falling on the track on the way back to the pits.  

Our son Rod raced his modified, finished 8th, I think they started 24.  He hit another car, they both ran thru oil from a blown engine, and Keith spun in front of Rod, so they hit head on.  Keith couldn't get back in the race, but Rod did and finished pretty good under the circumstances. 

I was in the pits being nosy and managed to trip over a jack handle and down I went on concrete with a thud.  Of course there was an audience, all came running to pick me up.  I landed right on the top of my left shoulder, which is rotater cuff territory.  

Never dealt with it personally, but John did a few years ago and he didn't think it was much fun.........!!  So far I'm not very impressed either...........LOL  I have his sling on, thank goodness it's my left shoulder, or I'd really be in a mess.

I guess I'll have to go into the doctor tomorrow to see if it's just abused or actually torn.  My WAG is just abused since I landed on it. First race for the hornets is March 17th, so I don't need a bunch of doctoring.......!

When we drove in about 10:30 Lynn opened the driveway gate for us.  He said they had been out playing with the donkeys when they let them out at bedtime and heard the truck coming in. He had also built a fire in our wood stove, so the house wouldn't be so cold when we came in.  Lynn and Linda are such wonderful people, we sure will miss them when they head back to Colorado the end of April.

* * * * *

I wrote above about the races and my lack of agility yesterday, but didn't post it.  This morning John insisted I go in to get an x-ray.  We have 3 medical choices in Benson, a walk in clinic in Safeway, my primary doctor or the emergency room at the local hospital.

Tried the walk in clinic first.  They have a long list of things they don't do, one of them is sprains and joints.  So we headed for the doctor, no appointment until next week.  That left the emergency room........SIGH..!!

We found out no bones broken, which is good.  In the last 5-6 years I've had 4 broken bones and they were all clean breaks, so it's good to find out my bones will take a little abuse without shattering, like happens with older bones some time...........LOL  The doctor said not to wear the sling, which works for me.  I can use my arm within reason and knowing there is no breaks, there isn't any reason to protect it.  It will let me know if I try to do something I shouldn't.

Everybody wants to be a racer these days........!!  

Lynn and Linda had said something about taking Justin with them to Colorado this summer.  Justin belongs to Courtney that trims the donkeys feet, so I told them they had to ask her.  She was here yesterday, they asked and she gave her approval, so I guess he will be going on an adventure.  Courtney's only question was, if he would miss the other minis, one of which is his mother.  I don't think he will, these days he likes to hang out with the big boys, more than mom.  

Lynn trying to keep up.........!!!  LOL

Thanks for the videos, Linda

TUCSON RODEO PARADE

Last year Linda brought up the subject of participating in the Tucson Rodeo Parade, which has been an annual event every February since 1925 and is billed as the largest non-mechanized parade in the U.S. That means no motorized vehicles, horse drawn wagons and carriages, riding or walking only.  It was too late to sign up last year, so Linda put it in her phone for this year.  

Our plan is to take 6 donkeys, three of them will be Lynn and Linda's, Turbo, Leddy and Leo wearing their pack saddles.  BlackJack and Quilla will both be wearing blankets with Forever Home on them.  We haven't decided yet what to do with Justin, the little mini.  We can always stomp and squash a straw cowboy hat and put it on his head.  Dave and Georgette are going to walk with us and handle 2 of the donkeys.  They do cowboy shooting and have all sorts of outfits, Georgette is going to outfit Linda and I.  I think John has enough miner stuff to dress Lynn if needed and Dave has all sorts of outfits, so we ought to look good.

I hope John and I don't wear out before the parade is over.  A friend that has been in the parade many times said it's about 4 miles..........that's a long ways.......LOL   Leigh Anne said to get there about 4am, to get a good parking spot for the stock trailers.  So now we're talking about going the night before, although that might not be allowed, we'll have to find out. 


This is a video Linda took a few days ago, of Lynn, Turbo and Leo playing in one of the big washes.  I guess Leo thought he was going to get left behind..!!! LOL

Today they went out with a neighbor and 7 dogs to an area called the Narrows.  It's a narrow spot in the San Pedro river bed.  In the 20's the city of Tucson did a study and were trying to figure out how to dam up that area, to collect water for Tucson, but never did.  If they had we might have lake front property now....!!

Anyway, they ran across a range bull, Jorgia's dogs are working cattle dogs, so no big deal.  I guess Saddik and one of her dogs had been arguing with each other, but when they saw the bull, they started working him together like buddies.  I don't even know if Saddik has ever seen a cow, although since he showed up at our place 3 years ago and had been on his own long enough to get pretty skinny, he might have ran across some range cattle out here.

Linda took this picture of Saddik last September after their 1st snowfall in Colorado

We don't know for sure what his ancestry is, but we're pretty sure there was a Rhodesian Ridgeback in there someplace. 

Another video Linda took of Turbo showing some of his "moves"

Everybody is doing good right now.  Rosie seems to be enjoying her banana shoes, she's moving around more.  Gus is doing so well, he is off all medication except for 1/2 Equioxx a day.  Next week we will start dropping that to every other day and if he does well, see how he does without it.  It's been a long time since he wasn't taking some kind of pain medication, so this is very exciting. 

BET YOU DIDN'T EVEN MISS ME...........!!

John and I sneaked off again this week-end, with Lynn and Linda's blessing.  Went to 95 Speedway at Lake Havasu, AZ to root for a friend that took his street stock over there to play with the local racers.  He did really well, and brought it home in one piece, so it was a good week-end.......!!!    They asked him to come back, which isn't always the case, when you take your car to a new track.   LOL  John won at Yates Center, Kansas in the 70's, 1st and last time he raced there.  On the way home all the lug nuts on one of the trailer wheels came off.  Wonder why..........???  A good reason not to leave your car and trailer unattended at a strange track I guess.   Had to leave the trailer and race car in a gas station with a note, took a couple of days to get it all straightened out.  But these guys seemed to appreciate having Ray show up, told him to bring his friends, so I guess they like having the competition.

Ray's street stock

I left Linda with a pretty full week-end, she had a tour Saturday morning, a church group came out groomed donkeys and cleaned water buckets.  She said they will probably be back soon, so I guess they had a good time.  

This morning Tyler came out to do feet.  Gus is doing so well, we are hoping to get him off all medication this time.  He got new shoes and his feet covered with casting material, to help his feet be less flaky and hopefully more sturdy.  There is still about an inch of flaky loose hoof material growing out at the bottom of his hoof.  We are hoping when that finally grows out, eventually he can do without the casting material.  He might have to always wear the shoes, we'll just have to see what happens.  

When John and I got home today, I asked how it went.  It seems that everyone Tyler worked on was a real "ass" today.  Gigi, even broke a couple of clips that held the chains on the stock, when she was suppose to just be standing still.  Gus tried to jump out over the front chain.......... Gigi broke the clips on the back chain.......!!!  Jeesh, they've all been in the stock before and didn't cause problems.  I think everyone got a happy shot for their trouble.  Dr. Jeremy was here to draw blood from Buddy Brat, to see if there is a reason he's been grumpy lately.  Buddy is usually a pretty happy guy, but there have been some changes lately.  So we'll start with a CBC (complete blood count) and see if there are any clues.    

Gigi and Rosie, thanks for the picture Linda

Rosie for the 1st time in her life got shoes.  They are called banana shoes, turn up on the front and back, so she can rocker her stance to where it is most comfortable for her.  Dr. Jeremy said she is going down the same road as Gus.  Hopefully we can intervene and stop the process or at least slow it down.  

And there was another tour this afternoon, so I don't think it was boring around here at all.......LOL 

UPDATE.............FINALLY

When I am gone for a week or more, it takes a long time to get caught up,  probably take longer than we were gone.  We went to the dirt races at Apache Junction, which is up by Phoenix.  They had 6 race nights in 10 days, with $13,000, to win the last night which was Sunday. 

We stayed gone the whole time except for coming home Saturday to attend our track's end of the year banquet.  We spent the night at home and headed back up there Sunday morning.  I had to come back and get my trophy for finishing 3rd for the year.  

The back of my head and my trophy as a center piece.  I had a spot all picked out for it behind the couch on a buffet with a couple of other "special:" trophies.  But it would have been tall enough to get into the ceiling fan.  So it's sitting on the floor BY the buffet........LOL   Thanks for the picture Lisa.......!!

The races were at night, so we had the days to do something.  We had never really been up in that part of Arizona, so decided to do the tourist thing.  We went to Apache Lake, Casa Grande Ruins, Canyon Lake, Camp Verde Fort,  ate pie at the Black Canyon Pie Cafe.  I don't think that's the name of the place, but it's world famous for their pies.

Casa Grande Ruins, probably was a religious center and maybe a gathering area for the surrounding small villages for an ancient swap meet

Spent the night at the Grand Hotel in Jerome.  It's suppose to be haunted, but we didn't have any visitors.  

The weather the morning we left Jerome

Lake Pleasant is a really nice lake and there is a herd of burros that live there, but we didn't see them.  Did see a couple of piles of poo, but that's it.....!!  In fact we didn't see any donkeys on the whole trip.  We've actually had at least one donkey come thru here, that was from the Lake Pleasant herd. 

We ate in Sedona, but it was just too crowded and so commercialized I told John it was like going into Costco before Christmas, lunch was really good though.

Wish I'd taken a picture when it came to the table, before we ate the corn on the cob, the salad, the rolled tacos and made a mess of the pinto beans, queso, salsa and guacamole.  It was really pretty, guess I was in a hurry to dig in and forgot to dig out the camera

Went up to Flagstaff, I guess to see their snow.  They didn't have much, but it was fun to see it thru the windows of the car.......!!!  LOL

Went thru a huge swap meet right off hiway 60 on the way to Apache Junction, it was another pre Christmas at Costco moment.  So many people and so much stuff to look at, it was rather overwhelming, so we didn't stay too long.......!!

Got home and found happy healthy donkeys.  Whatever BlackJack and a couple of the others had, didn't become an epidemic, thank goodness.

This is the herd outside Lynn and Linda's RV, I think they would have all the donkeys in the RV, if they could figure out the logistics.  LOL  Boaz was "front and center" at the start, begging for cookies from Linda.  

 We were expecting a new donkey named Poco in next week.  He was 31 and his owner is 87 and she wanted him to be taken care of, just in case.

I called her to make arrangements and unfortunately on Saturday, she found him down in his pasture and a coyote was attacking him.  She ran the coyote off, but said the damage to Poco's hindquarters was so bad, he had to be put down.  She didn't know if Poco got down and couldn't get up fast enough to escape or what.  She had him for 19 years I think she said and is just heartbroken, as we are, what a horrible thing to happen.

We were out of corral panels and pens, so I had ordered panels from a company in Texas that comes thru this area about once a month delivering panels and gates.

These are not all ours thank goodness.  Our order was the pile on top in the back.  This is Linda and John with the driver figuring out the next plan to get them on the ground

Unfortunately we won't need any panels or gates for Poco, but we will have some if we need them in the future.  We keep saying we are going to downsize, but that doesn't seem to happen.

Turbo begging Lynn for cookies on the feed room porch

"Ready for my close-up Mr. DeMille"  Thanks for the pictures Linda.....!!

WISH I KNEW WHAT TOMORROW WILL BRING........!!!

BlackJack is NEVER EVER sick or off, he's never been seen by a vet and just does his thing, day after day, year in and year out.  Very low maintenance.......!!!  But for the last few days he's been getting antibiotics syringed down his throat twice a day for some sort of virus that is going around, I guess.  As of this morning 3 more are trying to share in the fun, although we haven't started them on meds yet.  I checked with Dr. Jeremy and he said there is something going around, although a lot of them are getting a high fever and cough, none of ours are doing that.  Mostly they sound like a cow when they try to bray and maybe breath a little funny.  

If a bunch of them get it whatever it is, this will be the first epidemic we've ever had here.  So I guess we shouldn't complain, except the timing is terrible.  We won't be going on our vacation, wouldn't be right to leave Linda with a bunch of sick donkeys.  We might still go up to a couple of the races, just to see what's going on, don't want to miss out completely..........LOL

Yesterday Lynn and Linda took Leo, one of their donkeys and Justin one of the minis out for a short run.  They went over to visit with Jorgia, a neighbor and Linda took a great picture of Jorgia and her "fur" kids.  

Banana and George have obviously been around donkeys before, they didn't act like idiots when the donkeys showed up

This is a cute little video Linda did of Justin, practicing his burro racing technique.  He loves to pretend to be a racer and Linda encourages him.  They've been talking about Justin and Colorado in the same sentence........Hmmmm............since he actually belongs to Courtney, she  trims the donkey's feet, might have to clear it with her first.  If they did race him, as a mini he wouldn't have to wear a pack saddle and weight.  Who knows maybe he would get rid of the "jello" sides if he got a little more exercise....!!!   Poor Boaz and Quilla, they probably thought they had the inside line on being part of the Colorado gang, since they went last summer.  Wonder how many donkeys you can actually put in a 4 horse stock trailer?   We might find out by summer..........LOL

Linda has been putting a GPS on Gus to see how far he walks in a day, his top speed, all sorts of information.  He needs to get some muscle on his scrawny butt, and Dr. Jeremy said exercise might help.  So far he's walking over a mile a day, doesn't sound like much, but he's doing it on his own, without us deciding how much or when, so that's a good thing.

Ready for action

I'm not sure what all that means, but after he wears it a few days, she is going to compile the information and also draw a map, so we will know where he goes.  

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ONE AND ALL......!!

Well we survived the new year's celebration I guess.  We're are such party animals, Lynn and Linda came over before 9am to watch the ball drop in New York 3 hours early.  That's when we found out there's only 2 hours difference instead of 3, so no ball drop until 10pm our time.  So we drank our grape juice, Linda and John went out to let the donkeys out and we all went to bed.  LOL  

Gus wishes everyone a Happy New Year, complete with bubbles

Cisco wanted to celebrate too

Little Cheyenne didn't want to be left out.  She is so cute and sweet looking, but we all know better.  She can be a bad girl when she thinks some of the other donkeys are getting more attention than she is. 

I don't know if Coquette was making a social statement on the new year or not. 

Turbo and Leddy joining in the fun.  Linda loves to dress up the donkeys and dogs for every holiday and the animals seem to enjoy it.  

Courtney and Dr. Jeremy came out yesterday at the same time, to evaluate Rosie and figure out what would be the best way to trim her.  Just a little bit of trimming and she seems a little better this morning  She had been getting better the last few days, so don't know if the trimming help or if it is just the natural healing of the problem.  Either way we will keep her on bute for awhile, and hopefully she will get back to normal.  She's actually always been gimpy off and on, probably because of being fed alfalfa and sweet feed and plenty of it,  for most of her life.  And carrying extra weight, that just won't go away.

The last few days BlackJack's voice had changed, he sounded like he'd been hanging out with cows and learning their language.  Dr. Jeremy thought he might have gotten kicked or compressed his throat thru a fence or something enough to irritate it.  

After Dr. Jeremy left, BJ started wheezing and seemed a little lethargic.  Now he's on SMZ's for 7-10 days.   I checked with Dr. Jeremy first, it sure is nice having a vet available to ask questions, rather than having to make decisions on my own.