Creepy Crawlies

Tarantulas make good back scratchers.

Unless you are Lostine.  Then you hate everything.

Except maybe rattlesnakes.  Could be food.  Better taste it.

Check it out, Bombay!  A new toy.

You go play with it first.

No way, you're turn to get bit.

It doesn't look that dangerous or scary.

It's got this pointy thing that rattles.

And this thing has eight legs and tastes like chicken.

Stop biting me on the butt, will ya?

It's not me!  It's that chickeny thing.

Maybe if we gang up on this...

We can eat it!

Ahhhhh! Swat it off my butt with your tail.  Get if off!  Get it off!

I'll get yours off if you get mine off.

Whew!  I'm exhausted!

Me too!

Happy Halloween from NuzMuz.

Why I Don't Ride When the Ground is Wet

I've built up a bit of paranoia over riding horses when the footing is wet. It doesn't matter if it's moist or muddy from rain, iced over, or covered in snow. If there's moisture, I don't ride.

Yet I've been looking at other people's blogs and seeing how they ride despite the weather and ground conditions. I began thinking I should get out there and just do it.

Then IT happened...

I had let the horses into the round pen to eat some grass that started growing there thanks to the ground being saturated all month. When it was time for me to go in the house, I had to shoo the horses out of the round pen so I could lock the gate. I walked around them, raised my arms and said, "Okay, time to go..."

Gabbrielle bolted like a racehorse out of the gate, got two steps into her gallop, lost traction, and flipped onto her side. The thump was sickening. It all happened in less than a second. Had I been riding her and she took off like that, my leg would have been crushed, and I probably would have had both the wind and the sense knocked out of me.

Gabbrielle got back up and finished exiting the round pen with the most beautiful, controlled lope I've ever seen her do. I hope she learned from her experience and now knows it is always better to move at the slower gaits when floors are wet.  She's like a kid who you have to keep reminding not to run around the poolside.  She's fine. I checked her out a few hours later to look for signs of stiffness and she's as happy-go-lucky as ever.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Our relatively new, little adopted dog Scrappy is starting to freak us out. He has such an unpredictable personality. I can practically lie on top of him at night and he doesn't care, however if our other dog Midge gets within a few inches of him, he growls and screams as if he's being tortured. Poor Midge jumps into my arms quivering, not understanding what she did wrong.

Then the other day my son was walking through the room carrying an exercise ball and his foot accidentally brushed up against Scrappy, who was lying on the floor. Scrappy jumped up screaming as if he were in pain, then lunged at my son's bare foot. I grabbed him before he could sink his teeth in, and he started to attack my hands, but stopped himself because he realized it was just me. My son tried to pet him to apologize and let him know it was an accident, but Scrappy kept trying to bite his hand. The dog was completely out of his mind. He thought he was under attack.

I scolded him for trying to bite, and that brought him back to his senses. He then let my son pet him. I really suspect that he got that deformed rib from being kicked in the side by a previous owner, and that's probably why he overreacted to having a foot nearby him. We have accidentally stepped on or run into our other dogs plenty of times, and all they did was move out of the way. They seemed to understand that we didn't do it on purpose. We always followed up the accident with lots of sympathy and petting.

Abused animals are affected for life, even after they've been placed in a kind, peaceful home. If abusers think they can hide their offenses from society, they are wrong. Their victims carry the effects of their abuse in their reactions.

My Legendary Horse Personality Quiz

Find out the “Legendary Tail” behind your horses with the launch of an interactive equine personality quiz, available at www.MyLegendaryHorse.com.

The website also encourages horse owners to nominate their veterinary professionals to receive $5,000 for an equine charity or cause. The award is part of an initiative to recognize veterinarians and vet techs for their steadfast commitment to equine health, presented by Bayer Animal Health. There is no purchase required to enter.

I took the quiz for my three horses and here were the results:

Bombay is Lord Byron, the legendary romantic poet.

Bombay is a sensory creature, a bundle of emotion, like the curious poet and adventurer. Dramatics may be part of the package, but so are charm, bravery, and wit.

Lostine is Joan of Arc, the legendary heroine of France.

Lostine is a fierce and willful girl who knows how to get what she wants, like the young visionary who protected France against England. Her tender moments might surprise you.

Gabbrielle is Jane Austen, the legendary romantic writer.

Gabbrielle is a funny girl, sweet natured and smart, but occasionally stubborn, like the romantic English author. She may seem withdrawn sometimes, but, deep down, she is focused and vigorous.

Thank You!

Amongst all my long-winded posts I wanted to stop a moment to say thank you to those of you who visit my blog. It still amazes me how I can babble from the keyboard, push a button, and have hundreds of people read what I wrote, and respond with their thoughts. So many times I post something that is so long that I really don't expect anyone to read it, yet somehow there is always a handful of people who confirm that they did read the whole enchilada and have their own stories or comments to share.

Many times I post something that I expect will raise a few hackles, but I put it out there anyway. I open my Comments tab to moderate after donning my bulletproof vest, fully expecting to be shot down by angry readers, but instead I find supportive comments from very nice people.

In person, I'm fairly quiet. I think it is because every time I attempt to speak -- somehow, some way, I get interrupted. After years of having people talk over me or having random noises blaring over my voice, I have reached the point where I've been conditioned not to bother speaking. For instance, my husband was telling me a long story tonight and I listened quietly. As soon as he finished, I opened my mouth to respond, and the smoke alarm went off above my head! Nothing was even on fire. I just pulled something out of the oven and tried to speak -- that's all.

Ridiculous things like that happen to me all the time. My neighbor will talk to me non-stop for an hour without any interruptions, and as soon as I open my mouth to respond, either her phone rings or a car horn honks. I've learned years ago not to even bother talking in restaurants, because the waiter or waitress always walks up and asks a question the second I start speaking. It's a great way to get service if you need a refill. Just bring me with you to a restaurant and tell me to speak. You'll instantly get whatever you need. Ha ha.

Anyway, despite being a quiet person, I can type 90 words per minute, so my writing can get long-winded. It's nice to be able to spit out my words on "paper" at the very least, and actually have people "listen". So, thank you!

Storm Within the Storm

The ground hasn't been dry all month. I spend a lot of time putting on and removing shoes at the door because the mud relentlessly sticks inside the grooves and tracks of your shoes no matter how hard you stomp and wipe your feet.

When it rains I have to close all the windows, which means my studio painting project must be put on hold until I can open them again.

Bombay's poultice wrap changes must take place every other day, rain or no rain, and I have to somehow keep his hoof clean and dry while I'm doing it. I lay clean towels on the ground, but can't exactly control where he sets his foot down. Plus he usually paws at the towels and drags them through the mud before I can complete the process. I envy those who have stall aisles with mats and electricity indoors.

The other day Lostine seemed a little off. Was she limping? I couldn't really tell. When I studied her movement or asked her to trot, she looked fine. I convinced myself I was just being paranoid after having 2 out of 3 of my horses go lame.

Then one day I walked outside and my third horse was definitely lame. I cleaned out her hooves and found that her frogs were soft and there was some black substance deep in her hoof crevices. I got my husband to help squirt thrush ointment all over each hoof after I lifted and picked it out clean. The other horses were fine. For some reason Lostine just likes to stand around in mud and manure.

I have had to move Lostine around to different stalls because she pees so much during the night that she leaves pools of urine on every square inch of floor. With the ground already saturated with rainwater, the urine can't drain and it is only making her thrush worse standing around in that. She also has the bad habit to kicking her manure around to spread it out, and as a result she is always standing in manure. Gabbrielle has the sense to poop in one pile and bury it while Bombay just poops in one corner and keeps the rest of the stall floor clean.

Of course, we were changing Bombay's poultice and treating Lostine's thrush under the pressure of an impending storm. The wind was whipping the tarp around, so we kept trying to tie it down and get it under control, but by morning it was hanging on by a string.

I think my call that Lostine's lameness was caused by thrush was correct, because here we are a few days later and she's already walking normal. Her frogs have hardened up, but I still have to take the time to pick out her hooves every day to avoid any further infestation. Previously, she had been walking on eggshells as if all of her hooves were tender. They weren't hot, but the frogs could practically be scraped away because they were so moist and soft, and the crevices on each side of the frogs were deeper than usual.

I'm just glad it's not arthritis. I've been expecting her to develop arthritis because of her age and the fact the her hocks click and creak. If she developed bad arthritis I would have to control her inflammation and pain every day.

I'm hoping that I can take my attention off Bombay and Lostine long enough to turn it back toward Gabbrielle. Finding out that cause of her lameness is going to be an expensive project. Each time I'm about to kick that into action, something worse happens to put my attention elsewhere. Because she seems happy and pain-free, and can easily avoid her limp by avoiding the trot, she keeps getting put on the back burner.

Of course I had to receive a reminder in the mail that Midge is due for her vaccinations. There's a $300 bill right there. The vet charges me for a wellness exam whether I want it or not. You can't just go in and say, "I know my dog is healthy. can you just give her the shots?" Then they start hitting you with their dental care sales pitch, trying to dig deeper into your pocketbook, oblivious to the fact that you've just been laid off from your job.

We can make it for a while without me having an income as long as everything goes smoothly and we only have to cover our existing bills. I've already saved us $3,000 a year by switching insurance carriers, and we are cutting on back on groceries. We used to spend around $220 a week on groceries and had a lot of spoiled, stale or moldy food we had to throw out due to poor meal management on my part. Now we are spending closer to $120 every week and a half and using our resources wisely.

We are set in the clothing department and should not need to buy any new clothes for a few years unless my son goes through another growth spurt. Though I hate living in this noisy, nosy neighborhood, the good thing about living in one of my mother's homes is that we can skip paying the utilities if worse comes to worse, because my mother can cover it. She makes more money in retirement than my husband and I made working four jobs between the two of us. You'd think people our age should be taking care of our parents, but it's the other way around thanks to the economy.

Unexpected bills, such as medical bills for unexpected problems, are what will push us over the edge. So, once again, I find myself performing triage among all the animals around my ranch. Pain is always a priority. The squeaky wheel gets the oil first, but eventually the oil can will find its way around to everyone.

Can't Stop the Rain

On rainy days my family tends to go to the movies together. Today we saw "Hereafter". On the way home, I was white-knuckling it as my husband hydroplaned the car between lanes while passing cars. As we got closer to home we could see quite a build up of water on the shoulders of the roads, streams where there shouldn't be streams. I knew our property would be flooded, because with all of my horse troubles lately, I haven't had time to spread the manure in the low spots.

Sure enough, the path I must take to the barn is flooded. I had to put everything from the tack room into the back of the horse trailer while I've been painting the walls and ceiling. I can see water pouring out the back of the trailer, which means it is pouring in through the broken window, which means that boxes and boxes of horse supplies are getting soaked.

You can see that the 70 MPH winds threw the hay tarp around, knocking all the large rocks down that we placed on it to keep it down.

I had to take pictures of the barn through a window and screen, because I couldn't take the camera out in the rain.

You can see the horses all in their stalls watching the water rise around them. I have to go out there in a few minutes in my rain boots to feed them.

I wouldn't be surprised if the barn just floats away if this keeps up.

Sunday Stills: Fall Foliage

To find my fall foliage, I took a drive up to Spooner Lake, Nevada. There wasn't a whole lot of red, so I added my car into the landscape...

I stumbled upon another photographer shooting the fall foliage, so I had to include him in the shot...

He moved out just in time for me to climb down the mountain and have that scenery to myself...

To see what fall looks like in other parts of the country, visit the websites of those who left comments on this Sunday Stills Challenge.

Equine Photographer Supreme

One of the assignments from my photography course was to dig through magazines and tear out pages that contain examples of photography I admire. I tore plenty of pages out of Arabian Horse World magazine, not knowing who the photographers were for those photos.

However, tonight I stumbled upon a website of an equine photographer who specializes in Arabian horse images, and I found many of the photos I previously tore out of magazines as examples of photographs that impressed me. It turns out the photographer is SUZANNE STURGILL. Check out the galleries on her website.

Sensitive Timing

We've had ongoing construction making a racket around the neighborhood these past few weeks, so this was bad timing for me to have a horse with a hoof abscess. I have to change his poultice wrap every other day amidst all the noise and activity. From past experience I have learned not to try to change leg and hoof wraps in enclosed spaces such as stalls, because if the horse can't see what is making the noise, the spooks are bigger and more violent and I have less room to escape flying hooves.

This morning I noticed that the heel of Bombay's poultice wrap was torn and dirt was getting in, so I had to cut it off and apply a new wrap A.S.A.P. The only problem was that my neighbor had a cement truck pouring cement onto a new driveway for him. The noises ranged from the sound of the drum rolling, which vibrated my entire house, the sound of one worker whistling in code to the driver to direct him, the sound of voices yelling, the sound of cement sliding down a chute, and the sound of all the dogs in the neighborhood barking.

Scrappy comes when people whistle, so all the whistling from the construction workers was confusing him. He was barking inside the house asking to be let outside so that he could respond to the whistle.

I waited several hours for them to finish their job and leave, but it seemed they planned to live there. I had to bite the bullet and try to change Bombay's poultice with all of this going on.

I walked outside and the horses seemed to be okay with it. They were relaxed... until I approached with halter in hand. They must have thought I was going to catch one of them and load them up into that back of that spinning cement truck. I caught Bombay, and the mares panicked, whinnying out of fear that I was taking him away. I walked him to the side of the horse trailer where they could still see him. They galloped over to the fence to stick close to him.

Of course, Bombay instantly went on alert and began snorting and doing a dance. I closed the trailer door so that he could keep his eye on the cement truck and see that it isn't coming for him while I started cutting off his old poultice. It was difficult with all the kicking and dancing. I was afraid that I was going to stab him with the scissors, so I backed off and made a little video of the situation.



He was settling down by the time I made the film, so I put the camera away and tried again. This time I probably doubled the amount of duct tape. It makes it more difficult to cut through with scissors, but at least it doesn't rip and let dirt and manure into his abscess.

At one point Bombay backed into the pile of trash I left on the ground from his old poultice, and he stepped on the dirty gauze with the sticky poultice with his hind hoof. He kept kicking that leg, trying to kick off the sticky gauze, but it wouldn't budge. He was like someone with gum and toilet paper stuck to the bottom of his shoe. Once he settled down, I got him to lift his hind hoof and let me remove it.

At another point I was doing something with sensitive timing and needed Bombay to hold perfectly still. Right in that instance, Gabbrielle let out an outrageously loud whinny that made Bombay jump.

Of course, as soon as I finished wrapping the Elastikon around the top of the duct tape, which is the last step, the construction workers packed up and left. That's my life story. It took me an hour to do what could have been done in 15 minutes had the horse been relaxed.

Last Friday his abscess was amazingly deep and wide. I figured it would take a couple of months to heal. However, here we are seven days later and the hole has already mostly filled in from the inside out. I cut the opening wider with a hoof knife just to assure that it wouldn't close up from the outside and leave another abscess.

He is walking normal and off all pain medications, so I could probably have him out of his poultice and be riding him at the end of next week. Now if only winter could take a vacation and allow a few more weeks of fall weather without the rain, I'll be set.

A Jaunt Around Lake Tahoe

I took a break from my ongoing studio painting project and fixing things that break and wrapping poultices around my horse's hoof in order to return some equipment to my office. I spent the rest of the day driving around Spooner Lake and Lake Tahoe taking pictures and looking for a good spot to plant a letterbox.

I first stopped at a vista I've driven past hundreds of times on the way to and from work all these years. I finally had time to stop there and explore since I got laid off. Just below a deck with restrooms were trails leading everywhere.

Unfortunately, they don't give you time to explore all of them with their 20-minute parking limit. I ran around looking for a winter-proof spot to hide my letterbox, but people were everywhere. I finally found a secret trail where I planned to plant it, but then I heard some strange noises and rustling in the bushes that sent me high-tailing it back to civilization. I decided that the 20-minute parking limit would put too much pressure on the letterbox hunters anyway.  Despite all the locations where I stopped, I couldn't find a good spot for my letterbox, so I'll have to save it for the next trip.

I stumbled upon someone's memorial, which made me wonder how it ended up here in these bushes...

I love this next photo, because the water in the lake is blue while the water pooled on the rock is red...

Despite all the beauty, someone always has to ruin it somehow...

I took pictures of fall foliage that I'll be including in this week's Sunday Stills. Come back and see more pictures then...

Pictures Around the Ranch

I've been bad about taking recent pictures for this blog because I've been so busy. Here are a few I took today. Bombay learning to entertain himself in a separate pen away from the girls so he can heal without being chased around...

Note the neighbors' construction in the background. It's been going on for five years now. I think they are trying to make an add on to the barn. They get a bunch of young men out there every once in a while to do some work, but I think they spend more time sitting around drinking beer than working, because the project never gets completed.

The condition of Bombay's poultice diaper, duck tape, and elastikon boot just one day after the vet spent an hour creating it...

The mares being nosy...

Progress on my studio...

How about the height of that ceiling...

Anyone want to help me climb these ladders to finish painting?

I think I'd rather risk falling off a horse.

It's Been a Long Disjointed Journey

The Bombay saga continues.  My crazy gelding has been causing all kinds of trouble this year.  If he's not shredding tarps and winter blankets, he's trying to commit suicide.  The vets who came out today were a bit taken back by how accident prone this horse can be.

A little background:  Last year I trailered Bombay off the property to ride at least twice a week and never had any problems.  This year I took him on one trail ride and when we returned home, I found that he had bloodied his legs up kicking himself in the trailer.  I treated and wrapped his wounds and as soon as he healed, I loaded him up in the trailer for another trail ride.  I never got to take that ride on him, because when we reached the trail head, his legs were covered in blood again.  This time the cuts were really deep, so I had to get the vet out to assess the damage and put him on antibiotics.

Once those wounds healed I tried to retrain him to trailer, but he exploded and tried to jump over the center divider.  I couldn't afford anymore vet bills, so I opted to give him the year off from trailering and give him some time to heal mentally.

A few weeks later I walked outside and found him limping.  I found a splint on the inside of his left front cannon bone.  Within a few hours he was walking fine, so I didn't call a vet.  A few weeks after that I found him standing still with his left front leg swollen to twice the size of his right front leg.  I wrapped some ice packs in a shipping boot until the swelling went down and he was walking comfortably.  Again, he healed quickly so that I didn't have to call a vet.

Then a little over a week ago we had a series of thunderstorms, so I had to keep the horses in their stalls for several days.  When I brought Bombay out once the sun started shining, I found that he had a hematoma the size of a softball on the side of his belly.  I figured he kicked himself either trying to get flies off his legs or belly, or he laid on that hoof, or he kicked himself while freaking out over the thunder and rainstorm.  The hematoma broke up into smaller ones and started absorbing back into his system, so I didn't have to call a vet.

Then a couple of days ago I walked outside and found Bombay limping again.  Given he can be the Little Boy Who Cried Wolf, I didn't want to overreact and call a vet right away.  He can limp like a lame duck one minute and walk just fine the next like nothing ever happened.  However, the next day he was still limping.  Gabbrielle was pushing him around and trying to chase him off at feeding times, so I put Bombay in his stall for stall rest and for his own protection.

Then yesterday I walked Bombay out of his stall so I could clean it, and he was hobbling and hopping worse than ever.  I had been giving him dosages of Bute, but it didn't seem to be helping with the pain.  I kept examining his leg searching for any indication of an injury, but could find none.  I cleaned out his hoof and saw nothing.  Then I looked up at his belly and saw that he had lumps all over it.  Then I went into his stall and saw that some birds had used his water trough as a toilet!  Things were going from bad to worse, so I asked the clinic to send a vet out in the morning, since it was almost closing time and it was going to be dark out soon.  When I mentioned the lumps on the belly, the lady said, "Oh no," like that wasn't a good thing.

I started researching what would cause both edema and lameness and couldn't find something specific that included both.  My biggest worry was Pigeon Fever because of the bird droppings in the water.  But ultimately, I was baffled.  I really needed the help of a knowledgeable vet.

In the morning, Bombay made a liar out of me again, pulling  his Little Boy Who Cried Wolf stunt.  Most of his lumps had disappeared overnight and once I put him in the back pen he stopped limping and was moving well.  However, I didn't cancel the appointment, because I knew it would only be a matter of time before there was some other complication. 

The vet did say that Pigeon Fever is going around our valley, but since Bombay's lumps appeared and disappeared so fast, she thought is was more likely that he was either having an allergic reaction to bug bites or he had hives.  She did find some sensitivity in his hoof with her hoof testers, and could see the lameness at the trot, so she gave him a nerve block to see if the lameness improved or went away all together.  He did move better, so she suspected a hoof abscess.  She dug into a suspicious spot on his hoof, and sure enough, there was a deep pocket.

This was a recent development, as he just had his hooves trimmed a couple of weeks ago and was fine then.  All those other leg injuries turned out to not even be related to this latest lameness.  The doctor said that colic and hoof abscesses are the two most common horse ailments that she treats, and I'm fortunate to have owned three horses for many years without ever experiencing a hoof abscess.  She opened the abscess with her hoof knife so that it could drain, because it's the pressure from the pus and fluid within the hoof that causes the pain and limping.  Then she scrubbed it clean, filled it with poultice gunk, wrapped a baby diaper around it, then wrapped duct tape around that, and topped it off with Elastikon.  I get to do the same thing every other day in addition to giving him dosages of Bute.

I was relieved that both of his conditions were not related and were treatable.  I also talked with her about the best way to go about treating Gabbrielle's chronic lameness that has gotten worse over time.  She did say it wouldn't be a hoof abscess in her case since she's always been wonky at the trot and can gallop well.  She explained all they would have to do down at the clinic to diagnose the problem and I felt a bit overwhelmed.

Basically, they start at the hoof injecting nerve blocks and work their way up the leg to the shoulder until the lameness goes away.  Then they x-ray whichever part of the leg or shoulder that responded to the nerve block.  She said that equine chiropractors are good for horses that are slightly off every once in a while, but since Gabbrielle has had ongoing issues over many years, I'd be better off bringing her in to the clinic for a full lameness exam.

Of course, what would a visit from the vet be without my obnoxious neighbors interfering?  The people next door board a herd of horses during the wet weather seasons.  Once a year in the fall, a horse trailer comes rolling up my street to drop off the horses, and once a year in the spring it returns to pick up the horses.  Wouldn't you know it?  The horse trailer arrived right when the vet was bent over digging out Bombay's abscess.

When this trailer arrives, all the horses in it start whinnying at my horses, and then my horses stampede in excitement.  One year Bombay got so excited that he cracked his hoof all the way up to the soft spot and it bled.  I had to get the vet out to clean it up, put a round shoe on it to close up the crack, and prescribe antibiotics.  I then spent weeks re-wrapping his hoof in his stall.  One day when I was bent over his hoof, my neighbor drove behind my barn so fast that she kicked up a bunch of rocks into the back of the stall, which spooked Bombay and he knocked me down, then stepped on my foot and broke my toe.  I'm not exaggerating when I say that these neighbors have been the biggest pain in my butt in the world.  Their timing is atrocious.  I've suffered two broken toes and a broken finger in three separate incidents at their hands.

So, I forewarned the vet that the horse trailer was coming and Bombay might get excited.  Fortunately, the driver of the truck saw what was going on and slowed way down.  Lostine and Gabbrielle were more concerned about Bombay than the horses in the trailer, so they didn't stampede this time.  There was a lot of activity next door with cars driving in and out, people wandering around, and people moving large pieces of junk to make room for the horses.

I put Bombay in the back pen with his poultice wrap, paid the vet and started to go inside to mix his Bute powder with water when the neighbors released the horses from the trailer.  That's when the commotion began.  Bombay started galloping back and forth because the nerve block was still in effect and he couldn't feel the pain.  I couldn't stop him to administer the Bute, so I had to catch him and lead him to his stall, then administer it there.  I'm going to have to keep him in there until the neighbor's horses settle down.  They usually spend the first few days standing at the fence calling out to my horses.

I just hope I can safely re-wrap his hoof every other day without receiving any broken bones.  I may have to post my son at the end of the street to stop traffic while I do my vetting.  While all this was going on, tractors and dump trucks were arriving at another neighbor's house.  The vet commented that I live in a really noisy neighborhood.  I'm glad someone besides me has noticed that.  It confirms that I'm not being unreasonable when I get irritated by it all.  This just isn't an ideal location to own horses anymore.  It's turning into an industrial district.

Few and Far Between

My blog posts and comments have been few and far between, because now that I have the freedom to choose what to do with my days, I'm constantly on the move. It's hard to read and type while on the run. I'm literally on my feet all day long now, only sitting down to process photos or to eat a meal. Previously, I was chained to my desk with nothing but a couple of computers, so if I had a few minutes here and there, I'd blog.

My big project has been painting and setting up the photography studio. I always laugh when someone says that you can paint a room in a weekend. I've been painting for five days now and only have two coats on 1/3rd of the room. I spent three days before that cleaning out the room, moving furniture, and taping off the edges. I have to paint a sloping cathedral ceiling, which means either buying a pair of painter's stilts or climbing a really long ladder. I did this same job years ago with the help of my daughter, and I remember it taking weeks to get done mainly because I had to be so cautious to avoid falling 20 feet. I'd have to paint two square feet, climb down and move the ladder, paint two more square feet, climb down and move the ladder...

And each time I think, "All I've got to do is this and this and this and then I'm done," something randomly goes wrong and I have an extra step or two thrown in. Like, for instance, when I used a razor pen to separate the paint from the tape before pulling up the tape, the pen scratched the paint right off the wall, so now I have to do touch ups. It's amazing how you can spend so much money and still end up with cheap paint. Thanks Lowe's.

The horses have been more of a source of frustration than anything lately. I haven't been able to ride, because the ground has been nothing but muddy and slick ever since I got laid off. My next-door neighbors have also been busy bees buzzing up and down the street, doing construction projects, and inviting every Californian in the state to come stay with them for a few days. They have more cars in their parking lot (I mean front yard) with California plates than they have Nevada plates. They rope their guests into helping them fix broken down cars and build an add-on to their barn. So, there are people all over the place making unpredictable noises and sudden movements causing lots of spooks with my horses.

I had to abandon my mother's offer to pay for a wall between our properties for several reasons. One is that I was originally going to just put it up on the property line between us and them. Then people started loitering around the fence on the street side, so I wanted to build a wall there too. Then my nosy neighbors started hanging out in their backyard while staring at me, which would require a wall on the northern perimeter as well to block out those stares. When all was said and done, the estimate to cover all our bases with a wall was $20,000! That's a down payment on a house. My mother doesn't have that much money to spare, nor do we. With me being out of work, we may need my mother's help with more essential bills like food, shelter, electricity, and hay. Also, we missed our window of good weather to build a wall. Maybe by next spring we can either try again or start looking for a new home since my youngest will be out of high school and moving on to college.

Scrappy has been barking for hours because another neighbor, the one who fixes dragster engines, rented himself one of those tractor jack hammers and has been banging away at his driveway. The vibration is shaking my entire house and he's two houses away. It sounds like someone is rapping on our front door over and over, which is why the dog is in hysterics. As a horse woman, I didn't think I'd ever say this, but winter can't get here soon enough. I am sick to death of all this construction. It's non-stop.

Back to the horses. Lostine has been on a gnawing binge. She's destroying the walls of the barn and the fence posts. The horses have been gnawing the fence panels for years, and we just replace them now and then, but if she chews down a post, that will be bad, because those were set in concrete. I have to go outside every day with a can of motor oil and paint it onto the spots where she's chewing. Then she just finds another spot to chew the next day. People used to tell me that I had the most beautiful barn around, but now it is an eyesore. If I want to move, I have to be able to raise the property value, not lower it.

Bombay has been completely suicidal. I have to keep taking measures to protect him from himself. There are these relentless flies that focus on the horse's legs, and the horses are stomping and kicking their legs every few seconds. No fly spray affects these flies. They just fly away and come right back to land on the horse's legs after I spray them. Bombay gets so irritated by them that he kicks himself in the belly so hard that he now has fluid lumps and hematomas all over his belly. He also stomped the ground so hard that he made himself go lame. He exacerbated the splint on his left front leg and has been hobbling around. When I tried to lead him into a turn, he almost fell down. So, I've been having to give him pain killers. With Bombay's problems, I haven't been able to focus on Gabbrielle's lameness at all. At least she doesn't act like she's in pain, and she moves well at all paces except the trot. Her gallop is right up there with Secretariat's.

Of course, as soon as I lost my paycheck, everything in our house started breaking down in addition to the horses having injuries and destructive behaviors. I have to be careful what I spend money on. It's easy to say we'll stick to such and such a budget, but when you are experiencing unexpected problems and emergencies every day, your budget flies out the window in a hurry. Every time someone in my family mentions another problem that needs my attention, I just want to put my hands over my ears and say, "Na na na na, I can't hear you..."

I think of all the times I've gone to the doctor or taken a child to the doctor or taken a pet to the vet, spending hundreds of dollars only to be told that it's nothing or nothing can be done to help. Or worse yet, spending hundreds of dollars only to be told that the doctor doesn't know what is going on and then having to spend hundreds of more dollars either on tests or a specialist who also doesn't know what is going on. I tend to view initiating contact with the medical industry as opening Pandora's Box. Usually, in the end, everyone is so happy to be relieved from the stress of all the appointments and poking and prodding that the original problem instantly goes away. So, I'm trying to refrain from racing to the phone to call for help every time something goes wrong. Sometimes the help ends up being more trouble than it's worth.

We've discovered that Scrappy has quite a nose on him and he guards the house as well as a Doberman can. The other night he leaped off the bed barking and ran for the back door. My husband let him out only to be hit in the face with the waft of skunk. Yup. Scrappy is a skunk-huntin' dog. So now we have to be careful about letting him out at night. He also chased off a stray cat that wandered into our house when I left a door open. Nothing gets past this dog.

Oh yeah, and I like Scrappy's no-nonsense approach to the flies. If one comes near him, he snaps at it, chews it up and spits it out.

I'm just looking forward to things settling down. It will be nice if I can maintain a productive routine without getting waylaid around every turn by some problem that needs my immediate attention. I may not have the stress of my job and my boss forcing me to do the impossible anymore, but I still have a lot of stress trying to keep up with all the ridiculous things that happen at home when I have my back turned. I honestly don't know how I handled it all when I was working 60 hours a week. Things are just as insane as they've always been. I guess that's how life is when you choose to care for possessions and a ranch full of animals.