I found a new horse blog that I like. Take a look at Linda's blog
http:blogs.chron.com/hoofbeats/

Oh to figure out how to keep the weight off of 4 horses when you don't have time to work with them. Star, my mustang pony, is the worst, like most women she can put on weight just looking at food, and of course she is the hardest to work with. Both the mares are just green broke. Which means with my newest health problems I am leary of doing much riding with them. The boys are better, but Sundance has developed a limp that is most likly arthritus. He is about 18 and was hard used before he came here. Now he just eats and keeps my 3 company. He isn't really mine as he belongs to a freind who moved to Phonix, Ariz. She keeps calling me, saying she is going to come get him but so far she hasn't. I tell her no need to worry, I'll take care of him.

Another Sign of Spring

The horses are shedding. That is a major sign of spring. I spend a lot of time brushing and grooming now. These arn't show horses but still I want them to look fairly nice. Of course as soon as I finish and turn them loose in the field the first thing they do is drop down and take a nice dust bath in the sand that is so all prevailing here. It isn't warm enough to bath them yet but when I do I have to keep them tied until they are dry so they don't have mud on them. The few drops of rain and snow last weekend caused them to roll vigeriously to coat themselves with dirt that then dryed giving them what looked and felt almost like a coat of armour. Took me hours to get it off and out of their manes and tail. Still haven't finished with Star as she doesn't seem to want me to brush her which is weird because she usually loves it. Nita loves it even more and will stand there and go to sleep while I am grooming her. On the other hand BlackJack barely tollerates it. And of course being Black he looks the most like he has a drying mud coat on all the time. It really lets me know just how hard the adobe bricks are that are so popular in New Mexico for building homes. The pueblo Indians were doing it before the white man, or should I say the Europeans got here.

Well we might have the Dodge running at long last. So proud of the Scout for being there and running when we needed it. Just hope it continues to run. For a little bit longer, anyway.

Old Trucks

Both of our old trucks broke down this week. Not sure what is wrong with them. My mechanic, (my husband, Lee) is trying to fix them. He is so mad at them I don't dare stick my head into the garage. We dug the old 1979 International Harverst Scout out of the back corner of our lot and it actually fired up the first time we tried it. You have to slam the door to shut it, and pry it open with a crow bar. There is a crack in the windsheld right in front of the drivers eyes and you have to stand on the brake to get it to stop. But it runs.
Thats more than I can say for the Ford and the Dodge.

Well it seems as if Spring has finally Sprung. Don't know if it will stay here, or not.
Still getting down to freezing at night so don't dare put the houseplants out yet. Some of the trees are starting to open a few of the first blossoms, and have 2 daffidils blooming

Broke Down

We have 3 trucks, and 2 cars sitting in our yard. They are all broke down. I limped the old Ford truck home today. I can't get it figured out. It don't matter if their new or old all our vehicles seem to be broke down. It doens't seem to matter that we change the oil regularly, give them tune ups, replace old hoses, tires, and other almost wore out parts. What ever we don't think about is the part that gives up and says it isn't going to let the car or truck continue to get us from point A to point B. Thats all we ask. Just to go from home to job and back. We don't have anything fancy and don't want it as it will just brake down.
Does everyone have this problem with their vehicles? It seems so. Which leads me to beleive that it might be a manufactoring problem. Another words poor quality control.

This!!!!!!!!!!!!can't be the first day of Spring! My daffidills and tulips are blowing away in this wind. As are the almost open blossoms on my trees.

March Wind

We had a nasty weekend. Wind. Snow. Hail. Sleet. Rain. But not enough of any of it to amount oanything. Even a bit of thunder. Don't know where the lightning was - I didn't see any. Not my kind of weather. But I guess every little drop of mositure helps when you are in a drought.
It came in like waves. First a bit of huge snowflakes that were really pretty. Then smaller ones. Then it slacked of and sun came out. An hour later it was dark again and had sleet and small bits of hail, with lots of wind. Then it was gone. Later we had rain, which changed to frozen rain. Not any fun at all.
I understand there may have been several inches of the white stuff in the mountains and higher elevations. That is good. As the snow there has been less than 50 percent of average. We can use all we can get. Even if it does make for cold, wet, and nasty weather.

cams

Web cams are the greatest. You can watch wildlife or visit an area you have never been to or even heard of. I am trying to find more of them.

Eagle Web Cam

I found a really cool web cam that show a pair of eagles on their nest.
www.nwf.org/wildlife/baldeagle/webcam.cfm
Give it a try. You can watch a pair of eagles as they await the birth - or is that hatching of their eaglets. I can't wait for the first chick.

Snow is all gone. Wind and dirt are back. Our yard has been rearranged. Have bare places that used to be sandy, and have small sand dunes where it used to be flat. Horse pens 1 and 2 are down to hard pan dirt that is like walking on cement. Pens 3 and 4 have triple the amount of sand in them they used to have, making it very hard to walk in or push the wheelbarrow through to clean the pen. Not fun. The turnout field is down to the roots of sage and cactus that were in the field when we first moved here, and ground is hard as a rock. Not good for ponie hooves. But at least I was able to get the horses out of their pens today. All weekend I left them in as blowing sand was so bad.

MOISTURE!!!!!

We had moisture as of early this morning! Anyway we did have about an inch of snow on the ground when I got up. Of course within a few hours it was gone. And the wind is still blowing, although it isn't blowing the sand with it today that has been the normal all week. Sometimes I feel like we have gone back in time to the dust bowl days of the 1920's and 1930's. (At least that is when I think the dust bowls were so bad in the west and mid west United States.) It is caused by all the construction to build houses on top of having an extream drough in our state of New Mexico and surrounding areas.
That bit of snow promted the dogs and horses to get out in it and romp and play, causing every one to have a coat full of muddy dirt. But they had fun. Me, on the other hand, did not have fun. I was out in the snow, and wind, and cold, feeding horses, and refilling water buckets after dumping out the awfull mix of water and dirt that was in them. Hopefully there will be a day or so before the sand gets to blowing again. Better yet the wind will go away. Or if it has to blow - it could bring in some more rain and snow.

Fishy, Fishy, Fishy

I gave away my fish! I have had a 10 gallon fish tank with a series of little fresh water fish in it for the past 22 years. I gave up on it this past weekend and gave the last 4 little fishys to my friend. She is setting up a new fish tank. Thank Goodness. For years there was the old question of -
Did you feed the fish today? It seemed to be so hard for either Lee or I to remember to feed the fish. Can remember to feed the horses, dogs, cats and ourselves but not the fish.
When my son was 5 he kept asking for a fish tank. He was so hyper I thought that maybe watching the fish might calm him down. As soon as the tank was up, filled, and had fish in it he could have cared less. So of course it feel to mom to take care of the fish. Of course they wouldn't all die at the same time. Of course when it would get down to 2 or 3 little fishy I would feel sorry for them and buy some more. Some of them did well and lived for many years, while others bit the dust in just a few months. We had one algae eater, (sucker) that lived for almost 20 years, and grew to be about 8 inches long.
For the past 3 years I kept trying to give the last 4 fishys away and no one wanted them. Or already had the kind of fish that would have eaten them. Finally a friend said she was getting another tank. I said "Take my Fish!" and she said "OK"

We can only hope that all men will be women in their next life. That they will remember that they were men, and learn to have more sympathy for us women when they have periods, cramps, babies, PMS, menopause, hot flashes, night sweats, and the hundred and one other complications that come with being a woman.

With the warm weather comes the flowers. I couldn't reist buying some pansys, to put in a pot by the front door. I desperatly needed a spot of green with bright colors. I have daffidills, and tuplips breaking the ground. The fruit trees are ready to bloom, and of course there will be a cold snap that will kill the fruit.
The birds are really at it. Doves, sparrows, quail, roadrunners, flycatchers, and others singing to find themselves a mate. The past two nights the coyotes have been singing as well. They are howling, and crying and doing their mating songs at about any time of the day or night. I saw one the other morning while I was feeding the horses. It walked by my yard, looked at me, ignorned me and went on its way.

May I appoligize to all my readers. There is just to much going on in my life right now. I will try to catch up on blog. I have had some medical problems. It's hell when the body starts going but the mind still thinks you are only about - well a lot younger than this wore out body.
Anyway it is way way to warm here at the Tumbleweed Crossing. Supposed to get up to 70 degrees here today, and it feels like it. And it's only the 27th of Feburary. What is it going to be like this summer? I don't mind the warmth, and the wind did seem to stop blowing for a bit. But the fact of no rain or snow this winter is scarey. Very Scarey. There have already been several small bruch fires around the state.
May I ask that everyone pray, or do a rain dance for the areas of the US that need moisture and for those that don't I will wish that the rain comes our way, and you get a chance to dry out.

Wild Horse Roundup (Sort of)

I was so proud of my self and my husband,Lee, on Saturday. We rescued two wild horses by rounding them up. Well - Sort Of. At about noon I got a call from our neighbor who said her stepson had called her saying two of their horses had escaped the confines of their way to small pen and were running loose though the Tumbleweed Crossing neighborhood. Could We Help? Now the stepson is a big, strapping, young man about 25 or so, but he seems to be a bit intimidated by the equines he was chasing. Of course said equines are 2 year old colts that haven't had the most adequate training. And since they found their selves with way to much freedom, that minimal training had been left behind in their pen.
Of course we agreed to help. What kind of neighbors would we have been if we had said no? And besides - next time it might be my knot-headed ponies that were terrorizing the countryside.
After several minutes of not seeing either the young man or the wayward horses, Lee and I each grabbed a halter, jumped into different trucks and headed out to see what we could find, each of us going different directions.
I found a horse first. I hadn't gone more that a few hundred yards when a black horse, with three white stocking ran down the road near me. It then continued back in the direction of both our place and the neighbors where he had run away from. Good! I drove slowly until I could park near my place, got out, and tried to get near the terrified animal. NO WAY! An idiot in a pickup truck raced by him as if he didn't even see the black horse standing in the road. Could the driver have been that blind? If so why was he driving? And especially at that speed; way over the limit?
But then the wild horse spotted my horses and went right to the fence to see them. The gate to my driveway was open. By moving behind the horse I slowly working him down the road until he was right by the gate, and, thankfully went right in so that he could visit with all those nice horses that he could see. He was still really spooked and wasn't going to let me near him. No problem. I really didn't want to have to halter a frightened horse. So I opened the gate to our small field and let him find his way into it.
One horse caught. Where was the other one and Lee?
Lee pulled back into our place, as did the Sheriff, who was trying to help find the horses, too. Seeing that I had one, they went on over to another neighbors, about a quarter of a mile away, where the Sheriff said the other one had been spotted. I waited around for a few minutes to make sure the black horse was going to be all right. It wasn't long before I saw Lee coming back leading the other wild horse, a roan, while the neighbors stepson followed. We put the roan in with his black friend to await the return of the owners.
Later Lee told me that the roan had jumped a short fence then was cornered by the stepson and a couple of other people that lived in the area, but they were all afraid to try to put a halter on him and lead him out. Lee said that by that time the horse was so tired that he was able to walk right up and slip the halter on. The horse didn't want to lead back but was to exhausted to put up to much of a fight.
Hopefully the two run-away, teenage horses have had their only and last fling at trying to become true wild horses.

Spring?

Today it is about 60 degrees outside at the Tumbleweed Crossing. That is a bit warm for this time of year. Although it is just about what I like tempature wise. Not to cold and not to hot. Apareratly all the critters agree with me. Both of my mares, Star and Nita, are in heat. Both have PMS.
And all the birds are starting to nest. I keep telling the sparrows that they can not nest in the barn or in their favorite spot over my front door. It just doesn't work. At least not for me.
The newest resident of the Tumbleweed Crossing is a pair of roadrunners. They have been making strange noises. (At least to me they are strange. I asume to a roadrunner they arn't.) Plus they act as if they are trying to find the perfect nesting site. As they nest on the ground I hope they find a place that will be protected from all the stray dogs and coyotes we have here.

Comedy or Reality

All right. I have to admit after it was all over with and I had time to think about it, the idea of killing the smoke alarm with the mop while on top of the step ladder did seem like an act out of Three's Company or one of the other popular sit-coms that have been on TV. But in reality it was a very serious situation. The noise was driving me crazy as it was driving my dogs and cats crazy. I was 'home alone', and it was between 4 and 5 AM. Not a time you want to wake up nearby friends or relatives.
I was able to take care of the problem. But what if I hadn't been able to? Would I and my pets have been subjected to that horrific sound until a decent time to call for help? I considered going outside. It's January, and cold outside. What about leaving for a while? Yes, I considered that, and I could have taken the dogs. But not the cats. They are indoor cats so it wouldn't have done to just throw them out. To my way of thinking if my pets couldn't get away from the noise, neither could I. So I stayed and solved the problem. I now have a new smoke alarm at a 7 foot height that I can reach easily from a short step stool.
Then I got to considering the situation from different directions. What if I had been handicapped? Maybe in a wheelchair, or on cruches, or blind? The only thing a handicapped or elderly person could do was disturb someone so early in the morning.
Which makes me wonder why the state housing code makes it mandatory that builders put the smoke alarm so high up in a room with high ceiling's I can reach the ones in my bedrooms that only have a 7 foot ceiling. And don't tell me it is high to catch the smoke when there is actually a fire. If there is a real fire the smoke should pass by the alarm at 7 feet before it reaches the one at 12 feet.
I am sure it can be just as dangerous for someone to be fighting with an alarm that is just 'chirping' (as it is called) the battery warning, as it could be in a fire. I could have fallen from the ladder. As it was I sprained my knee slightly.
So, please, consider moving the smoke alarm or any thing that might be similar to a more realistic place in yours or a loved ones home. I would hate to hear about some dying because the smoke alarm low battery warning was being obnoxious.