WOW......!!!

 Only one more day in the month of February.  We've had so many visitors this month, we've only had 6 days without a tour.  People wanting to visit with the donkeys I guess.  A lot of the people are people that have been out here before.  Many of the winter visitors come back every year and remember donkeys that were special to them.  

Brenda Peo is a local artist that came out to take pictures of the donkeys years ago.  Hadn't talked to her since then, although I followed her Facebook page.  Roger Thompson is a photographer that came out last year and took lots of pictures of the donkeys and is back this year.  They met at Tubac at a showing of local artist's work, got to talking and found out they had both been out here.  They decided to come out at the same time and take some pictures.

Brenda brought her painting named Mork and Mindy to visit with the donkeys.  The donkeys look like they are very interested in her painting.

Roger was trying to get the "perfect shot" and Ruthie was trying to help.  

 Cisco wants to help too, unfortunately they aren't nearly as helpful as they think they are.  

 

Roger actually took this picture last year of BlackJack at the feed room door trying to get Suzanne to give him some Tums, one of his favorite treats.  We can give him 3 and he'll get off the porch and go to his pen.  But he won't leave if we only give him two, he's too smart for that.......!!!! 

Charley the dog had a tumor removed from his eyelid a week ago Friday.  He came home with a Elizabethian collar to keep him from scratching the eye or scraping  it on the ground.  So far he has completely destroyed 2 collars.  He's suppose to wear one for 3 weeks, until his follow up appointment.  He tore up the last one night before last, yesterday I drove into Tucson and got 2 more, but when I got home it was dark and putting one of those on him, isn't an easy task in the daylight.  He hadn't messed with it, so I cross my fingers and hoped for the best.  So far he hasn't bothered it, so we're giving him a chance to be a good boy.  

Suzanne's mother has settled in really well.  She says it's like camping out.  She's really enjoying the sunny weather and learning to drive the golf cart, so she can roam around while we're doing chores or whatever.  

Beefy is about to wear out his welcome with the girls.  He's decided that Frijolita, Tula and Ruthie are pretty cute.  They have gotten to the point where they don't want him anywhere near them because he's acting like he's the "man".  He's only been gelded since early Dec and had been used for breeding, so it's understandable that he's still going to act like a jerk for awhile.  But that doesn't mean the girls want to put up with him.  At least he's chasing the big girls, when he first got here he was in "lust" with Mamacita, who is less than 36 inches tall.  That just wasn't going to work, so he moved on to the big girls.  Suzanne started him on raspberry leaves this morning.  They are suppose to have a calming effect on both mares and geldings.  When Rambo was here, he was always chasing the girls, and I finally had him tested to make sure when he was gelded they didn't miss something important.  They hadn't, but he sure thought they had.  It will probably take weeks or months for Beefy's behavior to level out, although some geldings continue to act stupid, just because.  

Hmmmm.........IT'S ALWAYS SOMETHING.......!!!

 A couple of days ago Suzanne came in to share the unwelcome news there was water running on the ground out of the well head.  A few days before that one of the visitors on a tour just barely tapped the big bright blue barrel with his car bumper.  John had put the barrel over it to keep people from running into it.  Didn't think anything about it, John saw it happen and said it looked harmless.  

We have a large water tank the well fills up as needed, and sometimes it takes a day or two to run which is why we didn't know immediately that there was a problem.  Took a few days to gather up whatever replacement pipe that might be needed, so yesterday was, "THE DAY".  Suzanne and John worked all afternoon digging it out and hoping they had the right parts on hand.  Of course they had help......!!! 

 

Beefy making sure the hole is big enough to get to the broken pipe, which  was down about 2 feet.

Guess it wasn't deep enough, so time for the tractor

Buddy Brat probably making sure John knows what he's doing.  

They got it all replaced, glued up and we are now on pipe watch, waiting until the well runs water into the big tank again, to make sure it isn't leaking before John buries the pipe.  Wonder what will be next, seems like lately, almost everyday something breaks or quits.  Yesterday was also, "let's see how many golf carts we can break or run out of batteries"

.  

We've got some weak batteries, that John's been working around until we can get to town and get some new ones.  Yesterday 2 of the golf carts decided if they aren't getting new batteries they aren't going to run.  Unfortunately, I was giving a tour with one of the golf carts and nowhere near another one, Suzanne took time out from plumbing the well, to help with my problem, so the tour could continue.

Later on John was trying to put the only one still running into the shed to charge and the differential broke.  That's a shame because that one is our work horse cart.  Hopefully we can find the parts needed to fix it onine.  

Today Suzanne and her mom are spending the day in Tucson, this will be the first time her mom has been to Tucson.  On their way they took Charley the blind/deaf dog that showed up here last summer to have a tumor removed from his eyelid.  He won't be ready for pick-up until after 4pm, so they will be in town all day long.  Hope they find enough to keep them busy.  They had things to do and places to go, hope it's enough to last all day.   

Here's a picture of Charley, Renee took last time she was out to visit with her "Little Man Siggy".  I hope they weigh him today, to see if he's gained or lost since his last appointment.  He's been on a diet, but too many people know where the dog treats are and he doesn't look like he's lost any weight.  These cattle dogs are built stocky, but he's looking too stocky.

Tried to catch Simba a big black tomcat that's been hanging around here since he found out we feed canned cat food on the back porch.  He'd like to come in the house, but needs corrective surgery for that to happen.  I had a tenative appointment for last Tue for him to go to the vet. He'll let me pet him while he's scarfing down cat food.......BUT...... did not appreciate being scruffed by the neck and an attempt to cram him in a cat crate.  Guess we'll have to become better friends before that happens.  He hasn't tried to bite or scratch, he just wants to escape.  

MUST BE SPRINGTIME, THE WIND IS BLOWING............

 One of the pleasures of spring in the desert, lots of wind, but the days are nice and sunny, so I guess it's a trade-off.  

Suzanne and her mom have been back from cold snowy dreary grey Midwest about a week.  Her mom is thrilled with all the sunshine and the warm weather.  The nights are still chilly enough there is ice on the water buckets in the morning, but it seems like every morning the ice is thinner and thinner.  Won't be long before it warms up enough to be able to run the hoses in the morning and fill the water buckets.  

The donkeys are doing good, now that Suzanne is back some of them will be doing some burro racing in California, N.M. and of course Arizona.  They all got their feet trimmed this week-end, in preparation for the 1st race in about 3 weeks for a lot of them.  This will be N.M.'s 1st ever race, so everyone is looking forward to it.  There will even be a race in Tennessee this year.  The sport has really been discovered in the last 6 years or so, with lots of new faces showing up to participate in the fun. Suzanne is taking a trailer full of donkeys to CA, John and I will stay home and take care of the ones that don't go.  This will be the 3rd year our donkeys have went out there to run.  

When the donkeys got their feet trimmed the only one we didn't know about was Beefy.  He wasn't here the last time Dan did feet.  Justice is a little better each time, although Dan still has to Scotch hobble him.  This link shows how a Scotch hobble works, although it's a little fancier, Dan just uses a cargo strap.  Each time he comes Justice gives up a little quicker, so hopefully soon he won't need the hobble.  

When he got to Beefy he tried to pick up his rear feet and Beefy said I don't think so.  He wasn't really mean, or kicking trying to connect, but he wasn't going to cooperate, so out comes the cargo strap.  Beefy is big enough and strong enough, he could be formable, but Dan got him trimmed without putting him on the ground, which is better than the 1st time with Justice...!!! LOL  

Last night Suzanne came in late to tell us she had heard Beefy braying and it sounded really close to her trailer.  She opened the door and there he was.  Wouldn't really be that much of a surprise, but the donkeys hadn't been let out of their pens for the night yet.  She came out to put him back in his pen and was scolding him when she went around the corner of the pens.  There stood Jasper, which explained how Beefy got out.  Jasper is one of our official gate openers unless the gate is double locked and someone forgot to lock Jasper's.  Beefy's pen use to be Jasper's so he probably just walked down there and opened the gate, since he knows Beefy leaves hay sometimes.  

This is Jasper trying to see if there are any cookies on the golf cart yesterday.

  

If he only knew, Kathy one of the volunteers just brought in 2 big boxes of little cinnamon cookies today.  She is busy cleaning water buckets and always brings goodies for the "fur" kids.  Yesterday the donkeys got special cookies Linda sent from Colorado for their Valentine's day treat.  

Not sure what we're going to do for hay buckets in the future.  When we first started weighing hay we found 18 gallon rope buckets and they were really cheap, which is a good thing, since they don't last very long.  They split and crack and eventually aren't useable.  It seems every time we reorder them, they are thinner, which means they split and crack quicker.........!!!  I just went in to order a bunch of new ones and they now seem to cost about 4 or 5 times each for what they use to cost a few years ago and they have less plastic in them, by weight.  Almost all the places that sell them, say they aren't available right now, even at the higher prices.  Not sure what the answer is, but it is a problem......!!!   

This morning Suzanne came in and said there was water soaking the ground around the blue barrel that covers the well head for the water well. Hmmm..........that can't be good.  A few days ago one of the visitors on a tour, clipped the barrel when they were leaving with the car, not bad, but obviously bad enough to crack the pvc pipe to the well.  Haven't heard back from the local well guy, so don't know when he will get a chance to come out to hopefully fix it.    

I'M READY FOR SPRING & SO ARE THE DONKEYS.....

Our mornings lately have been pretty chilly.  So far the coldest morning was 11 degrees out here in the San Pedro River valley. But the days are sunny even if the temperatures don't get above 60 degrees, so we have the illusion of warmth.  The forecast is for another week of below normal temperatures.  😒

John checks the donkeys each morning to see if anyone is shivering or trying to stand in a compressed ball to keep warm.  So far even the old guys are doing OK.  I won't blanket unless they really need it, don't want to interfere with their natural ability to take care of themselves.  This morning LaRoy especially was all fluffed out, he looked like he had stuck his hoof in a light socket.......!!! LOL The first morning we had a pipe break in the garage, which flooded the floor.  But for the most part, no insurmountable problems so far although breaking ice on the water buckets is becoming a daily task. 

Our volunteers are still coming out even if it is cold.  I must say though none of us are rushing out early, so chores are getting done a little later than usual.  Unfortunately, some of the donkeys have figured out that they don't need to show up at regular time, because we're not in a hurry to start chores without sun. So morning roundup is rather disorganized, of course part of the problem is they come into the house/pen area where the sun comes up.  Once they find a nice spot with the perception of warmth, they don't want to move.  Bribery cookies don't work with everyone, so John gets the ones he can and the others will finally mosey towards their pens.  

Renee was out today, and shared some pictures of the donkeys she took when she was grooming.  

Renee and Beefy

Little Sasha

Renee's "little man" Siggy....he is her running buddy when there is a race to be ran

Mamacita and Renee

I'm not sure who this is, I have a feeling it might be Boaz

BlackJack

She even took a picture of Charley

THANKS FOR THE PICTURES RENEE......!!

   Suzanne was planning on heading home this morning but the roads in Indiana were iced over.  She is hoping to leave tomorrow morning if they get the roads cleared.