Unwanted Pets

Again, I had to call animal control and have them come get a dog that had been discarded on my street. We see way to much of this. We never know if the dog just wondonered off from it's home (I had never seen this one) or if someone thought they could throw the dog out here and 'someone will take her in'. It doesn't happen. We already have as many pets as we can take care of. So do all the people who live here. We love dogs, cats, horses and all animals but, as are all people that love animals, we are limited on how many we can finanally care for. And it seems all of us are at our limit. As the animal control officer told us if you can't care for a pet any more bring it to the shelter. Yes, it might have to be put down. But isn't that better than starving to death out on the streets. At this time of the year with all the extream heat a dog will die from lack of water faster than it will from lack of food. Is this the end you want for your animal?
    Or do you just not give a damn what happens to it? I think this is the case most of the time. So why do you take in the animal to start with if you don't want to feed it, and get it proper vet care - shots, and spay or nuter.
    This dog wasn't more than a year old. She was a pit bull mix but nice looking. At first she seemed vicious, but when I put my dogs back in the house she calmed down and was friendly to us. First she wanted water. She could smell it in the horse buckets. We let her have a good drink while I called animal contol. He responded quickly and the officer was really nice. He said the dog would be taken to a 'no kill' shelter since she was friendly. I do hope that someone adopts her. She needs a good home. I would have adopted a dog like her if I didn't already have so many pets.
     Good Luck to you little dog.

White Faced Calf

I found this little white faced calf while out on the desert. He posed for me so I took his photo. There was even a cholla cactus skeleton by him and a tiny cholla by it with one purple blossom.

Desert Calm

After an argument with someone you love a couple of hours out on the desert alone can really help. Or at least it helped me to calm down yesterday. There is something about being out on the desert that makes you realize just how small you are in comparison to all the nothing-ness that is all around you. Or at first it seems like nothing-ness but the longer you are there you realize just how much there is on the desert. At first it is hard to see anything but sky, dirt and weeds. But gradually the sky gets bluer or darker, or cloudy-er. Then the weeds become sagebrush, wildflowers, and juniper trees. The dirt wholes it all together. It may be sandy and blowing or just down right irritating but it is there to make sure the flowers, brush, and trees are able to survive. As you spend more time on the desert you will start to see the other lives that live there. The birds rabbits, mice, coyotes, foxes, badgers, and if your really lucky deer, bobcats, porcupines.

Here are a few photos of some of the cholla cactus that were blooming. That luscious purple color can't conceivable come from a stickery cactus but it does. And of course the bees were just thick on them.

Poppies

Some photos of a few poppies I took yesterday morning. The early sunlight was really showing them off nicely.

Caladium Plant

I haven't had a caladium plant in many years and this spring when I saw some bulbs, (actually corms, I think) I got a mixed bunch but all have come out this color. Has huge leaves, as much as 12 inches across and longer in length. I did go back yesterday and got another bag of bulbs that are to be the green and white leaves. Will be a while before I can get a photo of them. They are grown a lot outside in warm climates like Florida but are houseplants here and in cold areas.

I Been Bugged

The other night I went to bed and midnight it felt like there were tiny bugs crawling on me. After a tickle in my ear and it feeling like there was something between my fingers I turned on the light and there was a tiny black speck on my finger. I turned on the other lights and found there were gnats in my bed. YUCK!
     Well it could have been worse. It could have been spiders, ants, cockroaches, ticks, centipedes, scorpions, or bedbugs. Gnats I could handle but didn't want them in my bed. It seemed as if many a gnat had managed to get into my bed and laid eggs that were now hatching. So I stripped my bed and started washing all the bedding. I sprayed Lysol on my waterbed mattrice since that was all I had and Lysol does work sort of for things like gnats.
    Off I went to sleep in the spare bedroom.
    The next day I was able to track down the gnats and found the eggs must have been in the corner of bedroom under the window and close to the head of my bed. We took up a corner of the carpet and found all kinds of bugs besides the gnats there. So off I went to the store for bug spray. I don't usually use such stuff as I don't like using any kind of chemicals. But it was a have to case. I sprayed the corner under the rug and was able to spray under the baseboard.
     The gnats were going to the light from the window now that it was day time so down came the curtains which needed to be washed anyway, even though they were open enough the bugs could get to the window glass which is were they were staying. They wanted outside where they belonged.
       Since I was washing bedding and curtains, I did the dog and cat bed that were in my bedroom and vacuumed the carpet lots of times. The vacuum was great for sucking up all those tiny gnats fluttering against the window glass.
    Finally it seems that most of the gnats are gone but each morning there are still one or two in the window. At least my room is really clean now. But please no more bugs.

Blue Flower

This photo is one that my email friend Cindy took in her yard in England. It is so nice I had to share it. I just love the blue color and the composition and  lighting. You can see more of Cindy's photos on her blog at http//cindyssnaps.blogspot.com or go right to them on my links list.

Hot Wire

This is called the Tumbleweed Crossing and it is tumbleweed time. The tumbleweeds are growing ----- well, their growing like weeds. Actually they are not a 'weed'. Weed means any plant that is unwanted in your patch of the woods or in my case the desert. Tumbleweeds or Russian Thistles were brought to the United States as cattle fodder. People can eat them if picked young and tinder. I would think you could cook them in a pot of greens or stew or maybe have them added to a salad. (I've never tried them.)
      Regardless the horses love them. And since they are growing well at this time of the year my mares are trying their best to get to each and every one. Tumbleweeds make a good treat for the horses if you dare to pull one. I can't understand why the horses want to eat something that has so many stickers on it after it is more than a week old.
     My mare, Nita, thinks her neck will stretch out like a giraffe and she can reach the ones on the outside of her pen. She leans over the fence, pushing on the posts to reach them and gradually pushes the fence down. Star prefers to reach under the fence, and frequently has scratches on her face where she scrapes it on the wire fence.
      We spent yesterday replacing a couple of broken fence posts, pulling the wire back up into place and checking out the hot wire we have run around the top of the fence that hasn't been used since last summer.
     The electric wire works and now the horses are not trying to get at the tumbleweeds on the outside of their fences.

     I was leery of using it with Star since she is blind, but the horses seem to be able to know when the wire is hot and when it isn't. Don't know if they can feel it or hear it or what. Anyway I didn't see either of them touch it but now they don't get more than 3 inches from the wire.

!!!!HAY!!!

Another reason I haven't been posting as much and another problem in my life is HAY. Hay is critical for the horses to eat. Without hay horses do not last very long. Unless you want to go to the expense of buying processed hay in a cube or pellet form which can be even more expensive than buying the hay bales. I can't believe the cost of hay this spring. Higher than it ever has been. Average for alfala or grass hay is $8.00 a 2 string bale. 3 string bales are running about $17 for alfala and $22 for Bermuda grass.
    But we had to buy hay as we were down to 2 bales Bermuda. We now have $200 bales of fescue grass. And some of you are going to scream that fescue isn't good for horses. It is only dangerous to mares that are carrying foals when it can cause birth defects in the foal. Neither of my 2 mares have ever had a foal and all of my horses are fed fescue almost year round as I know the grower, it is usually the cleanest hay I can find. And his prices are the same or less than other growers. He had his first cut 2 weeks ago and was selling the first of it last week. We got 100 bales then went back for another 100 yesterday. It is horribly expensive but I don't have any other choice. And it should last me through the summer and most of next winter.
      Yes, you are saying that I could sell my horses. But no one around here is buying except for those that then send the horses to Mexico for slaughter. I am not going to let my horses suffer that fate. Neither are they trained well so no one would want them even if I tried to give them away. I am physically unable to do any training with them and can't afford it.
     I also refuse to do like so many are doing and take them to the desert or mountains, turn them loose and let them survive on their own. They might find enough grass, tumbleweeds, and sage to live on but there is no water on the desert. They would die of thirst. In the mountains they would be fine in the spring, summer and fall but would probably freeze in the winter. Remember they are spoiled to being fed by humans.
         Horse rescue groups are keeping an eye out in open areas for loose horses and doing small roundups as often as they can to rescue these poor horses that are abandoned by their owners
     So I bought the hay and my horses will be happy for another year.

What Next?

I keep asking what next. After the washing machine problem and having to replace all of the faucets in the sinks the cats decided we needed a leaky water bed. Yes, I have a water bed. I still prefer it to the regular beds. We do have a regular bed in the spare bedroom for company, and when the water bed leaks.
     It wasn't the first time this had happend but had been a few years. With 4 cats I didn't know who to blame but suppect it was Wiley who likes to crawl under the covers to sleep.
     We have to drain the water bed and patch the six tiny holes we found when I went to change sheets one day as the holes had been under the edge of the mattress and I didn't notice them for a couple of days. Then we refilled the bed and I was able to go back to sleep in a good bed again.
    So what next? I already know and will keep posting.

Fires

Our thoughts and good wishes go out to all of the people that have lost their homes anywhere there was a fire. Fires here in New Mexico have been at their worst this year. Last year there was a fire in the state that was at that time the largest in NM history. But the Whitewater/Baldy fire in the Gila National Forest has outdone that one and now it is the largest fire in NM history. We also have a fire near Ruidoso, NM that has burned a lot of homes. My nephew's wife has had part of her family loose their homes to this fire. There is a fire in Colorado that has taken a lot of homes and both fires are threatening to burn more homes.
         We are thanking all of the firefighters everywhere for their efforts at fighting these fires and the forest and brush fires everywhere. May they have more success in the coming days at fighting the ones that are burning now. And may we have some rain to end this horrible drought that is causing so many fires. The ones in NM were caused by lightning strikes when there was no rain to put them out.