{this moment}

Joining along with Amanda from
SouleMama


 

Our new Pony!

We have a new pony! It's a long story how I found him, but this pony needed a new home. I didn't know how badly, until he got here.
His hooves have possibly never been trimmed (our horses get their hooves trimmed every 2 months).
Underweight, although not drastic.
Still a stallion (never neutered).
Shedding in weird patches.
But the biggest thing wrong: Terrified. Scared to death. Literally shakes all over. Runs away. Cannot catch him.
Abused.

This is Winslow, day one.

So, got his hooves trimmed. My blacksmith was so kind and patient. Spent a week working with him everyday, several times a day. Very hard to catch him. Usually takes two people - have to corner him. Left his lead line on him, so when you get close can either grab or stand on the lead line. Once caught, his terror is blatant.
Then he got gelded (neutered). This is major surgery. The vet was awesome. My friend Elaine, who came to lend moral support, fainted in the stall. :)

This is Winslow, no longer a stallion. Very wary of me.
And now he must be exercised twice a day, to help his incision heal. At first I thought, how will this ever work? But, bit by bit, he got a tiny bit easier to catch. And lead.

It was a great day, when he would trust me enough to put his head down and eat grass (instead of watching me constantly in fear).

The bonding and trust between us has grown. I bring sweet feed with me to his stall, and he will come to me. I've taken off his lead line. I exercise him every day. We go on walks. I'm teaching him that it is ok for him to be brushed, and washed with a hose. I now have him in a stall next to my "big" horses, and Belle (my mustang mare) has fallen in love with Winslow. You should see. :)
He's still scared, but not as bad.

He is so adorable, and so sweet. Not an aggressive bone in his little body; just wants love. I'll keep you posted!

Desert Dwellers

Meet Dos, the desert tortoise. You can read about him here. I am so excited to see him eating. We planted sod, we also planted seed, which hasn't started to come up yet. SO happy he is eating!!!!!

We cover our hay for our horses with a tarp, maybe one day we will have a big hay-shed. It's monsoon season, and looked like it might rain the other afternoon. I went out to make sure the hay was covered. Nope, the tarp had blown off. So I flipped it back over the hay, and found a little furry friend! Meet a tarantula! He was gigantic, bigger than my hand. :)

Monsoon in Tucson

Utterly fabulous rains, floods, storm. I love this. Our horse arena flooded, our street flooded, utterly wonderful.

Monsoon!

The toad (see previous post!) knew what he was doing.
Today, we had our first monsoon storm.

Glorious clouds, thunder and lightning. Wind. For a long long time, the smell of rain. The tease of rain. A couple drops here and there. I went back inside. Then out again to sniff and enjoy. Then in again to knit. Then out again. Then I realized I was sitting inside in the dark, knitting. It was only about 330 in the afternoon. I looked out - the rain was here. Ecstasy!

I took the dogs outside. Boo, our littlest one, doesn't like rain. Silly girl. Sugar, the smartest one, ran into the yarn wagging her tail and loving it.

The rain has stopped now, but the sky is still gray.

Rain. For the first time in six months. The wonderful wet smell of it. The mesquite trees and creosote bushes letting off their happy rain smell.

Ahhhh. :))

Forecast

7 Day Forecast. June in the Sonoran Desert. And this is mild! I can *almost* (no, not really), deal with this kind of hot. It's when it gets up to 105 and above that it is totally intolerable. It's like a furnace. and yes, it's really dry. I think the humidity is about 7%. My eyes, nose, throat, skin - dry. Beyond dry. Pedicures are a medical necessity, because something happens to the skin on the bottom of your feet when you live in the desert. It gets like leather, and then cracks. Which hurts like crazy.
There are fire alerts everywhere. No fireworks for the 4th of July, 2nd year in a row.
So I limit my outside time to early morning and after dinner. Because the heat makes me not feel good. I don't know if it's my auto-immune disease, or what. But I'm sapped of energy.

Did I tell you how much I love my air-conditioning? We had to buy an entire new central AC unit; we did it in December. It works great. Glorious. My husband and I have little mini-wars about what to set it on. He likes 75. I think that's a little extreme.

What's it like where you live??

Night

Sometimes it takes my breath away. Soft wind, night sounds of crickets and other night creatures, it's dark outside. And I'm waiting.

 So it happens...the big super moon rises over the mountains. Majestic. Magic.
It lights that side of the sky as it rises.

Over on the other side ....still dark.

And the night waits.

Just had to share

This is my kid, taken by a friend while out hiking in the foothills of the Tortolita mountains. Isn't this a great shot??

Sometimes the beauty of this land takes my breath away.

New friend needs a name!

We live in Arizona. Land of lots of different wild animals, and one of my favorites - the Sonoran Desert Tortoise. There are adoption programs, and I've always wanted to adopt one. But you have to build them a habitat - there are specific guidelines online. My hubby was never motivated enough to do it with me. I was never motivated enough to do it alone.

And then Saturday came along. And hubby was driving down a busy road. And what was trying to cross the busy road?? If he had not stopped, the next car would have driven over the tortoise.

So, guess what hubby brought home to me??


We were worried that if we put him back where we found him, that he would be killed. We debated releasing him back into the wild - maybe a state park nearby. We're still debating. To be honest. It doesn't seem right to capture him. But can you relocate them? I couldn't find anything online that told me. If this guy goes back to the wild, then at least I will have a habitat ready for the official adoption process.

So.....

After an entire weekend of moving rocks, gravel, railroad ties, slate, more rocks...after an entire weekend of babysitting Mr or Mrs Tortoise who was very insistent that he could climb over said railroad ties and rocks and then time after time ended up flailing on his back...my muscles are sore. We're tired. And we seem to have adopted a desert tortoise.

He/she is very busy. He can move much faster than you might think! He lets me pet him. He likes to sniff me. He stops and looks at me when I talk to him. He goes to bed at night in the shelter we made for him. He ate some of his food today. He pooped this weekend, very exciting.

You're allowed one tortoise per household. They live 100+ years. My guess is that this guy is maybe about 5-10 years old. After I get over my exhaustion, I'll look it up online to figure out gender and age.

He-she needs a name! I need suggestions! Myrtle the Turtle was
suggested and declined.

Help!

His habitat is not quite finished. We need to plant the rest of the desert grasses we bought for him. His winter (hibernation) habitat is not finished yet.....next weekend!

So please leave your name suggestions! Thanks!!

Snake Season

My hubby caught a snake last night. And brought it inside to show us. It's snake season - September is when you have to be very careful.

I pulled in the driveway today, and saw a snake slither his way into the garage, not sure how he did that. I saw his tail - not a rattlesnake.

This guy is a king snake. We like them. They eat rats and rattlesnakes. This one was really little, and super angry that he was all of a sudden in a glass container. Don't worry, we put him back outside right away.

Kinda cool, Kinda creepy.

Which one do you think - cool or creepy???

What was slithering

in my yard? About 16-18" long...without it's head or tail....and was it a tail that rattled??












Yikes.

Can you tell what kind of snake it is by the skin???

PS hubby came home and looked at it with me. hard to tell from the picture, but there's a smaller piece of skin. It's from the tail. It was a rattlesnake. Hubby says they are travelers, they don't stay in one place. But I also know that they have territories, and never stray outside of approximately that mile. So he's around here somewhere, although I checked our entire property, and did not see him.

I Love The Rain

Just a quick one - I heard the thunder for a little while, and saw that out of the northeast windows of the house there were black clouds, but outside of the south side of the house, there was blue sky.

Typical monsoon clouds.

All of a sudden - the giant clap of thunder and a downpour. I go running outside with the dogs. I do happy rain dances.

It's all over in about 10 minutes.

More more more, I want more....

Pet Sitting!

I do some pet sitting - which I love to do. Between my day job and my websites, there's not a lot of time left over for pet sitting, but when the opportunity arises, I take advantage.

Sharing some pics of who I'm caring for this weekend. :)




Chickens.

3 Arabian horses, a donkey named Christmas, and a mini horse who rules the herd, named Cricket.

Mini horse mama and baby.

Mini Horse Paint Stallion.

Jack Russel Terrier Mama and her 5 newborn babies. She's not growling at me, that's just how her little mouth is.

What a great weekend!

Gardening Success?

Yes, we have fruit. Don't hold your breath, because I've gotten this far before, only to have tomatoes rot on the vine. Stay tuned.

Who came to visit??

We had a pool problem. Those of you that wish you had a pool, nah - don't do it! Join a community pool instead! Our motor on the pump went. NOT cheap to buy a new one. So, while the pump was not on, the water got a bit low. Luckily, nothing turned green.
But somebody came to visit the pool while nobody was looking.

A King Snake. We like them, they eat rattlesnakes. We saved him; hope he is ok. When I went back to look under the bushes where we put him, safelty away from dogs etc, he was gone. I got to pet him.

:)

Senior Prom

I'm not sure how it is possible that I have a senior in high school, that is graduating in just a few weeks.

Can someone please explain that to me??

Growing

Spring comes early to the desert. We planted a small veggie garden - in pots - in our little courtyard. The courtyard gets lots of shade, which is really important when the heat climbs to 110 degrees. This weekend, it is supposed to be in the 90's.

Then, as I do every year, I buried a pumpkin in the ground. Last year, it was growing beautifully in a very sunny spot. Then - one sad day - it was burning hot out and that was the end. The vine just died. So, trying again, in a different, shady, spot.

But, hopefully! the best treat yet - LEMON TREE! We've left it in the pot for now. Want it to grow nice and strong before we stick it in this dirt. The flowers smell delicious! Here's hoping!

What are you growing this year?

Snow in Tucson!!

Snow in Tucson! We woke up to a wonderful Winter Wonderland!

The dogs had so much fun! Of course, it melted by about 1030AM. Really fun while it lasted!

Too Close to Home

We've all know the horrific stories of mass shootings. Columbine - Virginia Tech - someone goes crazy and buys a gun and plots how he is going to kill everyone. I think we can all agree that these people are seriously disturbed.

We live in Tucson Arizona, not far from the Safeway at Oracle and Ina. Where there was a mass shooting on Saturday. 20 people shot.

My son used to work at the Cold Stone Creamery in that shopping center.

And when it happens 10 minutes from your home. Your safe haven doesn't feel so safe anymore. Is it safe to go to the grocery store???

I have not met Gabrielle Giffords, my congresswoman. But I voted for her. I really like her - her positions on most issues, how she speaks, how she seems to approach obstacles. I really like that she does "Congress on the Corner" - and just wants to get out to meet with her constituents. Face to Face. Shake hands. Hi, what's going on with you? I like that. The police didn't even know she was going to be there this past Saturday. No secret service. No guards.

And, someone was able to buy a semi-automatic weapon and mow down 20 people, before some heroes tackled him.

My first instinct - we need to change the gun laws.

My second instinct - I'm not sure that I'm in a hurry to go anywhere in public - where there are crowds - people. Is it safe?

I was at the doctor's yesterday; the nurse told me her granddaughter was friends with the nine year old child who was shot and killed. My husband got hay at the feed store on Saturday, the guy there is buddies with the brother of the shooter.

Too close to home.

I'm saying prayers for all those killed and injured. And I pray that Gabrielle Giffords somehow pulls through unscathed, and changes some laws.

Wild Life in the Desert

One of the things I do love about where we live is the wildlife.

I love the tarantulas. See my latest pics HERE. So Cute!!

I love seeing the coyotes and bobcats - no pictures to share as they are too quick for me.

The rattlesnakes scare me to death - no pictures, I'm too busy screaming. Although here are some pics of another snake HERE

I adore all the wild bunnies - see HERE

But one of most majestic of the desert wildlife are the hawks. A couple days ago, I was sitting in my little office, which looks out onto the front of our house. We have a few very big old mesquite trees. And a wonderful visitor came to hang out for a while. I took a LOT of pictures, hope you enjoy them. He (she?) never took his eyes off of me. I think he was trying to decide if I was too big to eat. I talked softly to him the whole time, and he just sat there. I walked away before he flew away.

He's probably about 2 feet tall.

I think he is a Harris Hawk, perhaps a juvenile (due to his spotted breast).

Amazing.