Who You Callin' Fat

Tuesday September 29 2015

What!?

A score of between 7 and 8, in between "Fleshy" and "Fat" ?!

That's what Dr Washington marked Dudley for a body condition score at the vet-in for the 55-mile Lost 'n Lava endurance ride. (Please note Dudley's excellent pulse of 40.)

I was shocked. I was sure Dudley would at least be a "6," what with all his diet and hard exercise, and the fact he'd already completed five 50 mile rides so far this year (and 4 last year!).

Well. We showed him. We finished the 55-mile ride at Lost 'n Lava near Gooding, Idaho; Dudley pulsed down right away at both vet checks and at the finish; the 55-mile ride was the longest ride he's done; and I know he lost even more weight during the ride, enough to now be a "5", no matter what anybody else says. (Not that he has a complex or anything; he knows he's Hot Stuff.)

And while we're at it, I think some of the Body Score Conditionings should undergo a little revision.

Something like:

1. Seriously, Too Skinny

2. Greyhound

3. Thin

4. Lithe

5. Huggable

6. Voluptuous

7. Sexy

8. Carrying Some Extra Baggage

9. BlubberButt, Definitely Too Fat

I think Dudley looks pretty darned Huggable after his 55-mile Lost 'N Lava ride!

More stories, pictures at

http://www.endurance.net/international/USA/2015LostNLava

Awaken

Tuesday September 15 2015

Of course it’s 1:40 AM.

Whinny, whinny, in my dream. Whinny, whinny, WHINNY, this is not a dream.

I sit bolt upright in the dark, my ear straining to hear through the window over my pounding heart. It’s cool and windy, spattering raindrops - and a horse is whinnying. That’s not right. And it’s Mufasa whinnying - Mufasa hardly ever whinnies, unless his herd mates across the fence, and/or Dudley, next door, are gone.

I jump out of bed, and as I grab a headlamp I glance at the clock. Of course it’s 1:40 AM, middle of the moonless, cloudy night, when it will be hard to find any horses if they are missing. I think to put on some warm clothes, because this might take a while. please god please god, my heart pounds, let nothing have happened.

Whinny, whinny, I hear Mufasa’s whinny moving around his pen. I step outside in the wind and raindrops, and indeed, Mufasa is galloping around upset. As I get closer with my headlamp, sure enough, I only see his glowing eyeballs. He’s running his north fence back and forth. His herd, the other 8 eyeballs, are nowhere to be seen. Dudley’s eyeballs are nowhere to be seen either, but hopefully he’s across the creek in the trees, by his herd across the back fence.

I duck under the hot fence, which is still standing, and head for where Mufasa’s herd should be. I see nothing but raindrops flying sideways in my headlamp beam. Mufasa keeps insisting the horses are missing in that direction. As I keep walking toward the far end of the pasture - there they are, 8 eyeballs. Have they escaped their pen? Mufasa thinks so; he’s still hollering behind me.

The 8 eyeballs are moving around. Have they escaped, are they outside? I’m talking to them as I’m walking, so they know it’s me. They nicker at me, and start coming my way. Mufasa suddenly stops whinnying, because he can see his herd again.

No, they hadn’t gotten out. They’d just gone to the other end of the pasture to get out of the wind. Just over a slight hill and in the darkness, Mufasa couldn’t see them. Sure, they heard their pal’s rather panicked whinnies, but horses never care about the one left behind, unless it’s them!

I walked back to check on Dudley and the rest of our horses, since I was out there anyway. Yes, Dudley was hanging out in the trees across the creek (also ignoring Mufasa), next to his own herd in the corrals.

As I headed back inside, back to bed. Mufasa’s herd had left him and ignored him again; he was back to whinnying; but now I know nobody’s escaped.

It’s always good when these night escapades end well, though they can disturb a nice sleep.

Of course it’s 2:02 AM.

New Neighbors on the Crick

Sunday September 13 2015

In hindsight, the obvious clues were there as to who was moving in.

1). I barged in the barn one night (this is a storage barn, not a horse barn), flipping on the lights as I strode in, arriving inside the second door just as the lights were flickering on. Startled from the cat food (around which is a half-set-up wire cage, to keep sneaky Luna the dog out, but that the cats can easily access), a rather loud and large, and, I thought, unreasonable ruckus occurred as the creature stumbled and crashed out the open window. I have glimpsed a stray cat before, so I assumed that's what it was.

2). The barn again. Where the cat food is. I have a small oven that I bake my Plumpie Ponies in, stored in a box, which was on top of 3 stacked Walmart tubs. It was solidly set, where nothing but an earthquake would knock it down. But it was knocked down to the ground one morning - and we didn't have an earthquake.

3). The barn again. Where the cat food is. We have buckets of ride ribbons stacked atop each other. Also solid, where nothing but an earthquake, or fighting dogs (we don't have any), or possibly fighting cats (we have cats that fight, but they really just howl at each other then creep away), would have knocked over. But several ribbon buckets were scattered on the ground, busted open, ribbons spilling out. And we didn't have an earthquake or dog or cat fight. 

4). Animal poop on the top round fence rail. What the - ? It certainly wasn't a bird. Sure didn't look like cat poop, and anyway what cat poops on a fence rail??? Dogs and coyotes will poop on bushes, and, ok, maybe a log, but - on a top fence rail??? We just sort of ignored that, because we couldn't figure it out.




5). The barn again. Now this is bizarre! I had a bag of clothes bound for goodwill, tied in a white plastic bag. I put it in the barn a few days, again, solidly on top of 3 stacked Walmart tubs. Nothing but an earthquake would have knocked it down. It was just full of clothes. And one morning I walked in the barn, and there was the bag on the ground, with - get this - 2 neat, careful holes chewed in either bottom side of the bag, with items of clothing appearing to be partially pulled out of the holes. A whole arm of a jacket was pulled out one hole, which appeared to get stopped up when the end of the arm got bigger and more couldn't come out. A whole leg of a pair of tights was pulled out the other hole, appearing to get stopped up only when the butt-part and other leg were tangled in a knot. The clothes themselves were not chewed.
What. The. Hell!



We do have stinkin' packrats in the barn (the war is on again to catch and remove them!), so… I just figured it must have been packrats. They love to collect things in their nests - but - entire pieces of clothing??? They usually chew things up into smaller, nest-decorate-able pieces, like cushion stuffing, insulation. I pictured a packrat taking a big white jacket and a pair of green winter riding tights for a packrat fashion runway show. Because - what else would have done that, and why?

6). The horses have been acting a little funny off and on. I tend to blame that on a cougar passing through, but they aren't acting real Cougar Spooked, just a little funny. Last night Dudley was eating his hay when he whirled away and ran a few strides away, turning to stare at the crick. Then he walked back and resumed eating.

7). There was the night a couple weeks ago, where Jovi Dog encountered a raccoon up at Connie's place. A raccoon! In the 8 years I've been here, I've never seen a raccoon. Never knew we had any.

8). Tracks this morning in the soft moon dust on the driveway put all the clues together. We have raccoons!

I Know You Rider!

Wednesday August 26 2015

We got to go on a road trip to southwest Wyoming for the I Know You Rider endurance ride, and The Raven and I got to ride Dudley on the 50 miler on Day 1, over pretty Western country around Evanston.

The ride story is here:

http://merritravels.endurance.net/2015/08/the-best-horse-endurance-ride-in-wyoming.html

Here are a few pictures from the ride, and photo up top is by Deb and Paschal Karl. Thanks Deb and Paschal!

The Raven is ready to ride Dudley!

A post-trailer ride stroll around ridecamp

On the trail in the morning, up on top

Well, the views would be great, if not for the smoke from the burning West.

Crossing a wide valley

That's the Bear River

Pretty Bear River!

I photobombed my own photo!

Road Trip: The Good Kind

Wednesday August 19 2015

Fortunately, this road trip is not the evacuation kind. With the Soda fire 95% contained, and therefore not having to worry about moving horses to safety, we are off to the I Know You Rider endurance ride, "The Best Endurance Horse Ride in Wyoming."

As you can see, The Raven is ready to go! He's never ridden in Wyoming before. (He's sitting in the middle of the saddles there.)

Thanks for everybody's concern and prayers during the (unwanted) excitement of the Soda fire - keep those thoughts and prayers going for all the others threatened by wildfires, and for the families of 3 firefighters who were killed today battling a wildfire near Twisp, Washington.

Sleepless in Owyhee

Saturday August 15 2015

It seemed a bit surreal that we were making an emergency evacuation plan. We didn't need it yet, but, we made plans. Sure, over the years, I've cringed during lightning storms, and watched the summer wildfires, and felt stabs of empathy and horror for friends who have dealt with fire and evacuations. Just yesterday near Baker City, Oregon, endurance friends Naomi and Lee had to evacuate, but with fire on their doorstep, the wind changed at the last minute and spared their house. But now we're actually dealing with it ourselves.

When the Soda fire started over in Jordan Valley over on the other side Owyhee mountains on Monday, we noticed. We took more notice when the 'pyrocumulus' clouds started becoming visible  from down in our canyon when an edge of the fire was (rather suddenly) 20 miles away.

driving into Murphy

When on Thursday this fire had become the biggest fire in the country, and our endurance friend Karen was on notice for possible evacuation near Murphy, we decided we'd better have a plan to get all the crick critters out of here. It's pretty much a 5-mile one-way-out road for horse trailers. Murphy is 12 miles away as the Raven flies. There's a LOT of cheat grass on the Owyhee Front between here and there, which can burn in a flash, if the fire reached down onto the flats.

the road to Silver City is closed

We've got 13 horses here to move. Neighbors, who happen to be gone at the moment, have 9. Linda, further down has 1 horse and a whole 'nother assortment of 4-legged things. We've got a place to move the animals, some 12 miles or so down the highway to a pretty safe place. We've got all the horse trailers up and down the crick hitched up and ready to roll. It would take roughly an hour round trip, catching, loading, driving, unloading, driving back. It would take 2 loads with all four trailers = roughly 2 hours. (And we wouldn't shave it that closely!)

behind Murphy

When we got the news that Karen was on standby to evacuate yesterday evening, Regina and I drove to Murphy. The fire and smoke was boggling - I mean, I've ridden out there; I know some of that country. And now it's burned!? And when you saw how long the line of fire and smoke was, and understood how huge this fire is, like 40 miles long and 30 miles wide - and you realized Murphy is just one small corner of this fire - it's almost incomprehensible. Fortunately, so far, no loss of human life, but it's sad to think of all the ranchers' cattle, and the wild horses in the fire's path.

A large contingency of firefighters were re-grouping at Murphy at sunset. Despite the 'cold front' predicted to blow in with strong north winds (in our direction) overnight, Murphy was not under evacuation orders, and fire crews seemed to think they could halt southern expansion.

looking back at Murphy from the other side

Around 11 PM, the wind kicked up here at home, the acrid smoke blew in, the temperatures took a dive, and the wind kept up howling much of the night. Not much sleep was had. (Nor the night before, as a lightning storm moved through to the east of us).


By morning, we were socked in with smoke. My lungs hurt from breathing it all night.

This morning's sunrise over Bates Creek

Inciweb had not been updated, so we drove back out to Murphy this morning. They're socked in with smoke too, but it appeared the fire line had indeed held, and we saw bulldozers and a plane out there working, and fire trucks headed out various roads toward the mountains where the heavy smoke was. So even with a strong north wind today, and the fire up to 277,000 acres (and only 15% contained), we're still in a safe spot, even with the closest moving fire edge 12-14 miles away as the Raven flies.

night view from west of Murphy… blurry from hand-held telephoto

It is somewhat maddening in this day and age of technology not to get updates (as of 2 PM, Inciweb said it was current, but the fire map had not been updated, and the news updates are old), but even more so for those nearest the fire and on the edge of evacuating.

We've been offered help in the form of trailers, help moving and driving, and places to board horses by so many people, and for that we are grateful. Now - we just sit and wait.



smoky day up the crick. eyes and lungs burn just standing or sitting around! good day not to ride

Here's a slideshow of pix from last night:


or a link to the album.

Owyhee's On Fire

Wednesday August 12 2015

First a flash flood; now a fire.

Those aren't pretty fluffy clouds that turn into dragons or pigs or wizards.

Those are smoke clouds, bubbling up from the Soda fire raging in Owyhee County, the closest edge of the fire being 20-25 miles away from us as the Raven flies.


Lightning is expected to have ignited the fire on Monday along the Oregon/Owyhee county Idaho border, and in the last 24 hours, with gnarly winds buffeting the fire across drought-dry, cheatgrass-rich desert and grazing lands, the fire has quickly exploded in all directions, covering over 200,000 acres now (it was 100,000 yesterday!). At one point it grew 1.5 miles in 8 minutes.

As anxious Owyhee-uns (and Oregoni-uns) are keeping an eye on its progress, social media is buzzing and chattering with offers of horse trailers, and places to evacuate horses if necessary.

We are directly east of the lower edge of the fire (in fact slightly to the south), and with hot temperatures and wind forecast for the next couple of days (which is what helped the fire explode rapidly), I'm watching that forecast every hour. For the fire to spread here though, wind would have to come from the north at some point; but so far, winds are predicted to shift between southeast and southwest, up to 15 mph. Lucky for us, but not so much for those to the north, east and west of the fire.