Such a shameless design

I like the way the earth makes patterns after the floodwaters recede.

Such a shameless design - song: 1984/Dodo, artist: David Bowie

Friday Foto

Those were the days...

Bowie video day - my favorite live performances

Moondust will cover you!!!!

These two videos are possibly my all time favorite songs performed live by David Bowie. I saw the first one, Cat People, performed during his record breaking Serious Moonlight tour in 1983. The effects and the music were just fantastic in the stadium- the walls vibrated with the guitars and drums and the lights flashed- what an experience!



This song, Hallo Spaceboy, was my favorite song performed during the highly successful Reality Tour in 2003-2004. Everything vibrated with the beat of the music- it was just so incredible to see and hear live!

it's so slashed and torn, part 4

It has been very rainy for the last several days. Temperatures have dropped into the high 50s, low 60s at night and 70s and 80s by day. My horses have been confined to the barn and their runs because the ground is too slippery in the arena

 and I'm not yet ready to turn them out in the big field, if ever again. Annie's ear has been looking nasty, all dirty and crusty again,

but the recent rains pulled the crud off and this is what it looked like tonight. Not much improved from last week, huh? Will it ever heal?

I'm really glad that I decided to put her on the antibiotics so she has a fighting chance at not getting a serious infection. These are zoom photos. I cannot get that close to it to treat it.

It's been a while since I showed you a full view of Yalla!'s summer coat. Here is what color she is at the moment. She still has her dorsal stripe and she's actually darker brown with golden tones in her coat. I believe in Arab colors she is a black bay. Although she has tan in her ears, her face and muzzle are almost black.

Here's a goofy looking head shot with Annie's rear in the background. Yalla! really likes to have photos taken when she has a mouthful of food, I've noticed. ;)

it's so slashed and torn - song: Under Pressure, artist: David Bowie and Freddie Mercury

Sunday Stills (Thirds 7-25-10)

This week's challenge is the Rule of Thirds. For more Sunday Stills photograph entries, please visit here. This challenge made me realize two things: one, that I don't use this rule very often, and two, that I use it mostly for landscaping.

Sunday - song: Sunday, artist: David Bowie, album: Heathen

With rainstorms lashing

I heard that we were finally getting rain yesterday. How exciting! I was at a picnic in the mountains, Thursday night, and we got rained out. But when I got home, about 20 miles later, nary a drop!

I was eager to see the rain and know that I wouldn't have to water my garden. It had already stopped raining by the time I got home. But the water was everywhere! Only one other time have I seen so much runoff and boy, is that a story, which I will tell you about after I show you some photos of last night.

In desert regions, creekbeds are often dry. So dry, in fact, that you wonder if there ever was water in them. We call them arroyos. Anyway, I have one running alongside my house, a natural divider for my horse property. It runs the length of my arena down to the roadway.

 Last night, it was a raging river! Okay, well, a rapidly moving stream. Remember, this is a few hours after it rained. Anyway, I couldn't cross it to the barn without wading so I found me a handy bridge. We always talked about putting a bridge in there.

These pictures just don't do it justice. The road into my neighborhood was rushing water and everywhere I looked, the ditches were overflowing. Note to self- must clean out culverts. This kind of rain only happens rarely and by this morning, it's mostly dried up again.

Anyway, on to my story-
Several years ago, we decided to go on a family trail ride. We loaded up Scout and Nadia and drove a couple of miles over to a neighborhood, called Five Hills, where we could access National Forest trails. My daughter and I would ride the horses while my two boys and husband rode their mountain bikes. My mom came along and stayed at the truck, reading her book. We saddled up and rode out with the guys, wandering around on the back roads and crisscrossing dirt trails until we got lost. Well, we knew pretty much where we were but couldn't find the right trail directly back to the truck and trailer. Ross went ahead to find the trailer and the four of us continued on. Anyway, we'd been riding for a couple of hours and we finally came out into a subdivision several miles down the road.

Then, it began raining. HARD! We rode the shortest way back to the starting point, along Route 66, the highway, uphill, walking the twisty, curvy, rocky shoulder in a heavy thunderstorm with lightning strikes happening all around us. SCARY!!! One of my favorite songs is by Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Horses through a rainstorm, and the line, "Have you ever ridden horses in a rainstorm or led a lion through a busy street bazaar?" came to mind. Onward, we trudged, worrying about my Mom worrying about us, as we knew she would be, and about Ross, did he make it back to the truck?? Scout was prancing and for some reason I got off, to cover the saddle or something? and I couldn't get back on so I had to walk him. My son and husband walked their bikes and my daughter still rode Nadia.

The freeway runs parallel with Route 66 but is on an incline above it. It had rained so hard that, along Route 66, waterfalls were forming from the overhead freeway down onto the embankments and running in rivulets along Route 66. The shoulder we were walking on was a few inches deep in rapidly running water. Needless to say we were soaked when we finally saw the turnoff into Five Hills. It had stopped raining and the sun was shining. We were glad to see Ross sitting with my mom all safe and dry. Then we unsaddled and loaded the horses quickly and headed home.

The short drive home was amazing. In all the fields there was water runoff down towards the road. The ditches were overflowing and as we turned into our neighborhood, we saw that the road was like a river. Farther along the road, we saw our neighbors standing outside with our other neighbor watching the heavy runoff as it diverted from my neighbor's driveway by a matter of inches. Oh my! They were so close to being flooded! The water came rushing down my 'dry' arroyo and into the little ditches which were overflowing. It spilled over the roadway and just passed their driveway which is downhill towards their house. That is such bad planning!! If the water had traveled that way they would have been flooded for sure. The water level was so high in my arroyo, not like my little stream photos, that it was spilling over the embankments and running into the field near my house too.

Within a few hours it all subsided and dried up and you'd never know it happened except for the strange brush marks on the terrain.


With rainstorms lashing - song: Ballad of the Adventurers, artist: David Bowie, album: Baal

Looks the same?

Every time I look at this picture I do a double take. No, it's not my herd, but when I look fast, it sure looks like them. These are Indian ponies at Canyon de Chelly. They were loose grazing right along the roadway. They don't fence their grazing lands.

Looks the same? - song: Sweet Thing, artist: David Bowie, album: Diamond Dogs

Life in a Day: On July 24, help document a single day on earth

For those creative folks out there...

Friday Foto

it's so slashed and torn, part 3

I actually decided to call the vet yesterday when I took those photos. So this morning, I tried to hook up my two horse trailer so I could haul her over to the clinic. No dice. I couldn't budge the hitch on the stock trailer. It sure sucks to not be able to do all the things I want. I called the vet clinic at eight this morning and then had to leave a message so I decided to go on to work and take her on Friday morning. Then, when I spoke with the vet, he said "no way-Friday AM", but that he could see her at 2:00 today. That blows when I have to drive a half hour each way to work. But I really had no choice. So I left work after just four hours.

Sooooooo, first thing he did was sedate her. Which is something I can't do. Even with the sedation, she was a little fussy about the ear. Then he looked at her ear. He removed all the crust and crud and cleaned it really good. We could see some surface infection but he didn't think it was too bad. He said that with ear cartilage, it's very hard to grow back together and he didn't think it would meld together. The best he could do is get it clean and hope it dries out and begins healing. (I had been hoping that by removing the dead tissue it could possibly be stuck together again.) He sprayed some Alum-something on her ear to kind of cauterize it. Now she has a pretty silver ear.
He asked me if I wanted to give her some oral antibiotic. He didn't really advise for or against but I figured since he was there, I might as well so that I won't have to call him back.

Oh yeah, after he left, when I went to 'untie' Annie (I actually just loop the rope high up around the stall post because she has a tendency to panic and could tear down the barn) she was peeing and winking. It reminded me of all the times I took her to the vet's a few years back to get bred. I think she might have been thinking about it too because a short time later I caught her peeing again! lol.

While he was there he also gave Yalla! her follow up shots. The little stinker didn't want to have the strangles tube put in her nose again so we had to back her into a corner. But she's all done now. And I'm over $300 poorer! Holy cow, right? The oral antibiotic was over $60.oo!

Until he worked on her, I had tied Yalla! up for some experience. I brushed her down and I must say that I believe she must have rolled because for the first time she was muddy ALL over from her mane to her tail and both sides. I was both happy that she 'can' and sad that she 'did'.

After the vet worked on Yalla! I retied her up and got Scout out. I cleaned him up and rode him around with the bareback pad. We rode around the round pen for a bit, walking and trotting and then I rode him out and around the neighborhood, giving him a nice working trot along the grassy edges of the back gravel roads. he was very well behaved and walked when I asked him. He never called back to the girls even though Yalla! was calling to him. Greatly improved from the other time I rode him when he was Mr. High Anxiety and calling back home, dancing and high headed, the whole time.

A short time later I came back and let him go and loved all over Yalla! for being so well behaved on her tie. Then I let them all loose and fed them for the night.

Now, I'm going to go have a good cry over a glass of wine...

it's so slashed and torn - song: Under Pressure, artist: David Bowie and Freddie Mercury

it's so slashed and torn, part 2

I've been trying to doctor Annie's ear but it is really hard to do. She won't stay still long enough for me to spray the medicine on it. I sit on the top rail and hold the lead rope until she settles down, which she never does, and then I get a feeble attempt at a spray. I almost always miss. I realize I probably made a mistake in keeping her inside the barn while it healed. When she first did it, the two sides were close together. Now, they are split wide apart because when she eats, I noticed her ears sometimes touch the barn walls, and this has caused the separation and bend on the one side. I think if I had left her out in the field to graze, she wouldn't be hitting her ear and it may have stayed closer together as it healed. Hindsight!

The other day it rained and really cleaned it up so I finally got a good look at it. Does it look infected to you?

I'm thinking it might be. I may have to make that appointment with the vet after all. Unless I can get pennicillin and give her a dose myself.

We've been having quick, violent thunderstorms every day or so. The rain may have washed off her ear but it also gives her the opportunity for a good mud bath.

It's so slashed and torn - song: Under Pressure, artist: David Bowie and Freddie Mercury

Despite the rain

The horses have been in from the big field for the last few days so that the grass can grow and I can watch Annie's ear for possible infection. Today, it rained really hard. Surprisingly, my little herd stayed out in the downpour along with Lisa's horses. Usually, my four run for cover when it rains. Were they being neighborly? This was taken during the rainstorm.Gosh, when I look at that photo, it's almost hard to tell which side of the fence each of them is on, isn't it?

Afterwards, Lisa's two mares wandered off and my big horses rolled and rolled and rolled. Yalla! doesn't roll yet. Now I have four brown horses. Then, Scout put on a bucking exhibition that would have made a rodeo horse blush. No pictures, I was too busy watching.

Despite the rain - song: Dead Against It, artist: David Bowie, album: Buddha of Suburbia

Sunday Stills (Summer 7-18-10)

This week's Sunday Stills challenge is Summer.

Flowers in bloom, cactus,
and lizards
remind me of summer.

Summer is buying fresh hay for the horses,
playing in a river with your dog,
wading in the water to feed ducks,
sprinkler fun,

and wearing short sleeves and shorts in the hot sun and wind.

For more Sunday Stills, please visit Ed's website here.

Sunday - song: Sunday, artist: David Bowie, album: Heathen

She'll scratch

Last year, my friend gave me a foal-sized fly mask for Yalla! Unfortunately, it was way too big to use with her little Arabian head even though she was a foal. I tried it once and it fell right off. Here she is in her yearling-sized halter. I actually pulled in the throat latch two inches on the other side. I have a way of pulling some of the throat strap in through the ring and then running the excess strap through the formed loop since the buckle is on the last hole. As you can see, it swims on her. This year, I decided to try the foal-sized fly mask. At first, I was concerned about putting it on her so I put one on Scout while she watched. Then she went over and smelled him, touching his mask with her nose. Just look at his expression! Silly boy, Scout! Right after that she came up to me as if to say, I'm okay with it, if you want to put it on me, go right ahead. So I did. It's actually too small but it still works. I can just barely velcro it on but she seems okay wearing italthough it seems to cause her to scratch

She'll Scratch - song: Song for Bob Dylan, artist: David Bowie, album: Hunky Dory

Friday Foto

it's so slashed and torn

My daughter came over and made me dinner Wednesday night. How sweet is that? Afterwards, she and I went out to the big field to bring the horses in. They were standing just east of the gate and when they saw us, they neighed and came along the fence line towards us.

I picked out a couple of stickers from Yalla!'s lower leg again. I wish she would stay away from the cactus. The other evening, she had a cluster of cane cholla cactus thorns embedded in her upper lip. It must have been very painful. She didn't want to stay still for me to pull it out so I finally headlocked her and sort of pushed it out from behind. Ouch!!

As we were haltering the horses, I noticed the tip of one of Annie's ears appeared darker than the other. I looked closer and freaked! Somehow, she had spliced the tip of her left ear in two. The blood had already dried up and she didn't seem to be in any pain. We discussed calling the vet- it was after hours- and decided that it was too late to use glue or stitches on it anyway. I'm not financially in a position to spend a lot of money if they can't do anything, so we decided to let it heal on it's own and watch for infection. She just had her tetanus shot in May. I know, you're probably thinking- bad horse owner!

I was surprised at how very little blood there was on her. I'd always heard that ears bleed profusely but I didn't see any dried blood on Annie's legs or face or anywhere except a slight darkening at the very tip of her ear where the injury was.

I wonder how it happened. She has had runny eyes lately. (I actually cancelled a vet appointment for her eyes last week because they were looking better and I didn't want to deal with trailer loading issues.) I think she must have been rubbing her eye on her leg while standing too close to the fence and then she caught her ear on the barbed wire fencing as she came up.

Today, I climbed on the barn pipe rail fence and took this picture pointing downwards. It's the clearest view I've seen of it. It makes me ill to look at it (shivers). I feel so bad for her.

I called five tack shops looking for Scarlet Oil in the spray bottle. Three of them said that they usually carry it but were out. The others had the aerosol can but not the liquid. I didn't think I would be able to spray her with the aerosol can. Finally, on my way home tonight I stopped at one last tack shop that I couldn't remember the name of so I couldn't call it. I got there five minutes before they closed too. They had the liquid in stock so I bought it and poured it into a spray bottle. I haltered Annie up, carefully slipping the halter over her ears, and climbed up on the top rail of the fence, straddling it for balance. Then I coaxed her up to me. I very, very carefully sprayed her ear with the spray bottle. She doesn't like me doing it but she also knows I'm helping her so she was very, very good and I got the injured area pretty much covered with the Scarlet Oil. Now her ear tip is all red instead of black. I will put some more on in the morning. And I'm going to pray it heals well with no infection.

I will leave the horses in for a few days so Annie can recover. The weather is cloudy and there is a possibility of rain- I hope- so the grass can grow. There isn't a lot of grass out there but daily grazing has really done a world of good to my horses' conditions. Scout is fat, Yalla! is growing, Nadia and Annie have put on some needed weight, and I haven't had to use my hay. And it's been bad for them too- cactus stickers and now Annie's ear! So, my dilemma is, once Annie's ear is healed, (Oh, why, why did this have to happen?) do I continue to graze them, knowing the risks, or do I keep them inside?

It's so slashed and torn - song: Under Pressure, artist: David Bowie and Freddie Mercury

Bowie video day - Heroes

This video is from the Live Aid concert in 1985. It happened 25 years ago yesterday.

He actually gave up one of his singing spots to show the film. It's very disturbing. Here is the link.


Heroes - David Bowie

We're walking down the street of chance

Don't ever wear white when you work with horses! All I did was walk them out to the field and look at my sleeves!

The horses are all very polite and stand quietly while I unhalter the four of them. Then they all walk off in search of some good grass. Usually, Nadia or Annie will stand and watch me leave, until I'm out of site, and then they put their heads down and eat.

If anyone is interested, this is the way I walk from the field back to the barn. Leaving the field, I head down the lane.It's just about 1/4 a mile on a little dirt road. Here the lane gets really narrow and turns rocky from old broken tiles thrown into the lane to make it less muddy in wetter times. Then I make a right turn at the open field between the arroyo and the trees.
In the next picture, you can see my big tan barn with the white roof.
We head towards the barn, watching out for stickery cactus and yucca plants. The other day, Yalla! walked into a tree stump. OOops!
It may seem like a simple enough walk but there's always something new and interesting for the horses to see along the way.
For some reason, Annie is scared of this trailer with the siding. In back, is my garden, an old fenced dog run. Fortunately, the plastic (bag) ribbons that flutter in the breeze to keep the birds away from the plants don't seem to bother the horses anymore. Well, for that matter, the ribbons don't seem to bother the birds either. ;)
Then we walk down into the arroyo (ditchbanks or dry riverbed) and back out, up the little hill, towards my barn gate at a narrow point between the trailer (above) and the gates. It doesn't look it but there is a steep embankment on either side of the arroyo and a large bush next to the fence that limits the width of the area we can walk through. Notice the really green grass? That's down in the arroyo. It's an interesting maneuver with the four horses. I always feel like a teamster guiding the horse team to back up, move over, and get in position. Then getting them through the gate is another challenge. I open the eight foot gate and then turn them loose one at a time as they go through the gate.

We're walking down the street of chance - song: Baby, artist: Iggy Pop and David Bowie, album: