Cautiously Optimistic

March 6, 2022

Hello again,

Well, we finally got our mustang with the problem hoof trimmed for the (hopefully) final time. I was in consultation with my buddy, Emerson, the Navajo Cowboy, about how his week was looking last week and he told me any day was fine but Thursday. So, I, of course, duly procrastinated and waited until Thursday to start laying my trap and then finally had to execute it on Friday morning. So, I went out to the feeders with all of the loose hay swept up from the barn floor in the back of the buggy and ran it under their noses and tried to get them to follow me back to the corral. I had already opened up two of the panels of the corral so that they didn't feel so 'caught' in there and this time it worked. The whole main group of six horses went right in and started eating the hay off of the ground. Freedom, who was our target, and the smaller group of four horses just stood there and watched from outside of the corral. Try as I may, she didn't want to go in there, so I went back to the barn and grabbed some sweet feed to try and entice her with. Sure enough, that got her attention, but it also got the other nine horses' attention, and it was a bit of a scramble to not get knocked down in the process. Finally, Freedom went in so I very quietly lifted each corral panel, while facing the horses on the inside, and slowly stepped the panel back into place. That went off without a hitch, so I did the same thing with the other panel. I was expecting them to freak out because I clanked one of them pretty loudly, but they just stayed there eating contentedly. Then, with those in place, I unchained the door to the corral and let it close. Now, I had Freedom plus the main group of six horses on the inside of the corral and the other three on the outside. They all knew something was up, but didn't react adversely. The group on the outside still wanted to eat, so I ran back to the barn to grab some more hay and took it to the feeders, where they followed me and began eating. Now, back to the corral, I went in and opened the door to let the other six horses out. This took a few minutes, but I then got it down to just Freedom and Blossom in the corral. Blossom is one of the mamas and she's the one that taught everyone how to kick the gate/waterer/feeder as hard as you can with your hooves! She was being a little ornery, but after a little sweet talking, I finally had it down to just Freedom. This was a few hours before Emerson would be showing up, so I put some water in the corral, plus some calming pellets, and was then actually able to slide her halter on. And, when Emerson got there later, she actually didn't fight us too badly, no one got kicked this time(I got stepped on) and within less then an hour, she was good to go as he actually opened up an abscess that seemed to be the cause of the original problem. Now, other than a slight limp, you wouldn't even know that she had half of her hoof taken off in the process!

Other than that, we had gorgeous weather this week with the temperature rising to between 65 and 70 every day. Nights stayed above freezing and it was much easier on the rapidly diminishing wood pile. This weekend saw the weather revert to a more normal 50/30 kind of split, with the week ahead looking to have lows in the teens and highs only a little above freezing with high winds...ah, springtime in New Mexico! Erin has been using the Vitamix that her Dad got her to start grinding her own flour and did so successfully for the first time this week, taking whole wheat berries and turning it very smoothly into whole wheat flour. Not that we can stock up forever, but with the war raging in Ukraine, it has taken two of the world's biggest exporters of wheat out of the market and surely the price of it is going to go straight up through the roof. So, in our own little way, we're continuing to get food in the rawest forms that we can and have been stockpiling wheat berries, dried beans, chiles and potatoes, just to name a few things. Erin's already made blueberry scones out of her first batch of flour, and I can attest that they are absolutely delicious. Other things on the menu lately have included deep crust pan pizza, jaffa cakes, avocado toast and numerous other goodies, too many to mention! We've been itching for a road trip or something similar to do soon and are going through our options. With a house full of cats(some almost 20!) and the three dogs in tow it cuts down on possibilities, but we're thinking of meeting friends of ours that moved from Pennsylvania to Arkansas in Texas at a really cool state park that I found with a bison herd over a long weekend: Caprock Canyons State Park (https://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/caprock-canyons). With the nation moving beyond the pandemic and starting to travel more, all the national parks look to be jam-packed all year, especially as they were already busier than normal since less people have been flying over the last two years and more have been driving to their getaways. We've been yearning to go back to the Grand Canyon to reexamine that, as we have been there once, but only for one night and one day. That however, will probably be busier than anything else, so we might just drive around and find open BLM land to camp on. The west is overflowing with BLM(Bureau of Land Management) land that does not have all the restrictions that national forests and parks have and you can literally just pull the car off the road and set up camp anywhere, so there might be adventure ahead for us yet this summer!

And, finally, for the best part of the letter back home, a new batch of pictures. The first five are from the morning that I spent trying to get Freedom in the corral: Freedom, plus the main group of six, in the corral; then, the other three outside of it; next, Freedom giving me the eye after I got the halter on her; then, another shot of her looking pretty in her blue halter; and, finally, the only shot that I could manage of Emerson at work...Erin had to run to town that day, so I didn't have my camerawoman! The next lucky thirteen shots are all from Erin and are shots that she's taken over the last couple of months: first, Chelly looking all cross on a charred stump; then, me goofing around with Willow, trying to see whose mouth is bigger; next, Erin's take on avocado toast; then, her version of homemade soft pretzels; then, her favorite dish in the world, Vietnamese Pho, while in Santa Fe shopping a few weeks ago; next, two surprises that she found while out shopping...hot & spicy boiled peanuts and a huge bin of whole hog heads; then, some orchids that she's been keeping going over at the boss's house; then, a foggy morning over the mesa that looks over us; followed by a cloudy sunset that was nearly blinding one last time before the sun made it below the mesa; next, one of our now normal wake-up surprises when we go out on the stoop and see that it's snowed overnight; then, a shot of the airport in Santa Fe, where she had to drop the boss off; and, finally, an action shot of me while I was getting chores done after work and before the final horse feeding, almost ten hours into my day and still grinning ear to ear!

Take care and see you next week.