How The West Was Spun

Spring-y!

Despite the fact that we continue to have gorgeous warm sunny days interspersed with hit-and-miss cold, blustery and snowy days, it really is trying to be spring in these parts - and I have proof.

My lilacs have kicked it into gear:

I replanted the whiskey barrel planter we have in the back courtyard area with some strawberries, which have really started to take off:

And, D and I decided this year's big lawn and garden project would be to completely redo the front yard.  When we bought the house, there had been renters in for almost a full year, and we are pretty sure there used to be actual grass in the half-moon shape area outside the front door.  Which the renters didn't bother to water.  And that, followed with last year's drought has left us with nothing but dirt.

This weekend, D tackled getting some of the junipers trimmed back from the edge of this area.  He pulled out a few sagebrush bushes that had taken hold.  He cut down some form of ornamental small tree that would be where I'm standing in the above photo - it bloomed for a total of 2 days and wafted a dusty, sticky pollen all over the deck and the front windows, and then looked dead for the rest of the year.  He also pulled out 2 dead rosebushes and something else dead from the front bed on the left-hand side of the photo.

So here's the grand plan:

• First off, sadly (VERY SADLY), we have to have the pinon pine next to the front steps taken down.  It's pulling on the gutters and shingles, and it's starting to buckle the pavement (and we highly suspect the foundation).  It's leaning precariously in the wind storms we've been having and the arborist feels it likely it's just a question of when it'll come down on the house.  So we are getting estimates together to have that removed.
• Next, we are going to finish clearing the dead/semi-dead random shrubs (there are 4 in there - one of each of something or other) in the bed farthest along the walkway, near the steps.  We are going to build a raised bed in there and plant that with something like daylilies (something low maintenance) to give a little color/height to the foundation there.  We'll extend the daylilies down the small area next to the steps up the walkway from the driveway below.
• Third, we have one small lilac left next to the front door that's doing okay.  We'll be replacing the dead rosebushes with 3 more dwarf lilacs, to tie those in to the larger ones that run next to the deck on that end of the house.  Those will go here in this bed.

• Fourth, we are going to install a walkway of landscape pebbles and probably stepping stones along this bed, running out to the back of the yard, as well as a matching one that runs perpendicular to the house, extending out from the front door to our secondary driveway, which is where the UPS guy and other visitors seem to like to park, to walk up to the house.
• Fifth, we are going to put down landscape barrier and then a contrast-color of landscape pebbles over the rest of the yarn, adding in two dwarf fruit trees flanking the walkway that's perpendicular to the front door, two on each side.  Not too close to the house either, so we can enjoy them without worrying our foundation is getting pried apart.
• Finally, as a last note, we are going to revamp the little rock garden bed that sits empty (except for the weeds) just outside the walkway.  I think we may do a little solar-powered rock water fountain and possibly put in some native blooming (perennial) cacti around that for an accent out front.

We are excited about the project, although it'll be a LOT of work.  It'll be a great improvement to the front of the house and let us hopefully keep down the dust without having to water grass 24/7 here in the summer.

All for now.....

Tsankawi Site

My MIL was here for a visit this weekend, and so, you know... we do what you do when out of town guests arrive - you take them to things in your backyard you never go to. 

We do live close to Bandelier National Monument, but we live even closer to the Tsankawi site which is part of Bandelier, housing Ancestral Pueblo people ruins.  We drove the 5 minutes from our house to the site, and enjoyed the 1-1/2-mile walk on Sunday with my MIL.  The site is beautiful - really breathtaking views of the cliffs and the fall foliage, even from the parking lot.

 

The hike through the site is not super easily accessible - there are 3 wooden ladders you have to climb up and/or down, and a lot of the footpaths are cut into the rock with drop-offs on one side, and some of the footing is a little tough.  It was well worth it though.  You climb up the first ladder to get up onto the middle "step" that runs along the side of the mesa. From there you have to scramble up some narrow passageways to reach the mesa top. 

 

Once you do that, tho, you are awarded glimpses into hewn-out cave dwelling areas.

 

There are tons - TONS - of pottery sherds all along the pathway.  These were my favorites.  (Seriously.  These are next to the trail.  I don't have a telephoto lens.  There are signs asking you to respect the artifacts, and we didn't pick up anything or take them with us, but you can squat down next to these and LOOK at them at arms' length.  Very cool.)

 

There are also a lot of petroglyphs in the rock walls along the mesa face.  You can see the spiral/whirlwind-shaped one in this picture pretty easily. (Click to embiggen - there are others on that wall if you do).

 

Several human figure ones, serpents, and what looked like some kind of horse (my camera had a hard time with this one as it was farther away).  The entire area is filled with all kinds of evidence of the people who lived here.  A stunningly beautiful place.

We were moving along as there was an incoming storm and we didn't want to get caught up on the mesa top with bad weather, but D and I are planning to go back and take a little more time and some more pictures with his good camera this fall.

I think my MIL really enjoyed the weekend - she and D also went to Bandelier while I worked on Friday and we went up to Georgia O'Keefe's Ghost Ranch on Saturday, but you know... pony rides are always fun too.

 

All for now......

Ride the Caja - 2010

The ride went super well this weekend.  We had a great group of folks come out to enjoy the trails.  The weather cooperated by almost everyone's standards (me?  cold weather girl?  I would have been fine with about 20 less degrees, but I'm fussy.)

We had bright blue skies and some high puffy clouds.  The wind actually was a nice addition for most of the day on Sunday for the riders - it kept everyone cooled off and we had NO metabolic problems with the horses.

 

About the only major glitch we had was that the second vet we had scheduled to come never showed.  She gets 30 lashes and bad karmic juju, as far as I'm concerned, but our vet (who is our personal vet at home) came and totally kicked butt.  He handled all of the checks, and the trot-bys, and stayed chipper and upbeat ALL DAY.  

 

Bhen and I had a good ride together.  It only took him about 43 miles to settle in. I think he missed having the large white pace car known as Sam with him, because he was a total herd 'ho, happy to bond up with ANYONE remotely near him of the equine persuasion.  We had several discussions about the fact that he needed to focus on where he was putting his feet and quit yelling at the other horses around him.  AND that we were not going to ride with every horse that came near us.  It's an interesting physiologic chart to watch his heart rate monitor run at 110 or 112 while he's trotting along nice and relaxed by himself, and then bump to 140-145 when he's yelling at his fellow ride-mates.  Anyway, he came in great at the checks, pulsed right down after a drink of water, and ate and drank like a champ.  We didn't set any track records, but we were 11th out of a field of 16, and we improved our personal finish time, so I was happy with how he did.

He also reached his 500-mile mark for "regular" (meaning not limited-distance) endurance rides with this one, so I was super proud of him for that as well!

I definitely wanted to thank all the folks who came out and volunteered.  There is absolutely no way to host a ride without volunteers - and folks stepped right up and helped with water tanks, and signs, and pulse checks, and made sure the riders were able to have a successful, and we hope (!), fun ride.

All for now.....
 

Marking Trail

Saturday, D and I and the horse boys headed out to mark the limited-distance loop for the endurance ride next weekend, some of which also encompasses the first loop for the 50-milers too.  We had been watching the weather all week and they were calling for rain, and we SO did not want to go out and ride almost 30 miles in a downpour.  When we got to the trailhead (where they were hosting a competitive trail ride this weekend), the skies looked pretty gloomy.

 

Even the thought of rain was enough to make Bhen have his grouchy ears on for a while. I swear to dog, he is like the Felix Unger of horses.  He doesn't want any of his stuff messed with, he doesn't want to be fussed about, he just wants things HIS WAY and JUST SO.  (HIS WAY does not involve rain, snow, excessive heat, too much wind, any bugs, or new stuff on his saddle.  Or anyone fussing with his feet.)

You might have figured out, we were marking the blue loop.  We had 500 flags to mark the just-under 30-mile loop and we actually didn't even mark part of the first 7 miles as those overlapped the competitive trail ride and we didn't want to confuse those riders with double flagging.  (Those 7 miles are 2-tracks and can be marked pretty easily by vehicle anyway.)  So, we trotted out the first few miles and then, once we figured out where the CTR pink flags stopped, we started marking.  Everything on the right, and turns marked with a blaze of 3 flags.  LOTS of flags. 

By the time we were headed in for the last section of mileage into base camp, Bhen had figured out we were going to steer over near a tree but if he slid up right next to it, he didn't have to stop trotting, just maintain course, and I could line up the clothespin and fasten it onto the branch at the trot.  The real trick was leaning down to do sagebrush bushes at speed, but he figured that one out too.  Pretty much, if he can continue to trot while doing whatever insane human trick I'm doing, he's okay with that.  Not so much with the stopping constantly and backing up and waiting for me to carefully place the pins.  That's not on his happy list either.

Luckily for Bhen, the day cleared up and we had only partially cloudy skies off and on, but with some sun and a nice breeze.  This is one of the cattle watering spots headed back into the main 1100 well (where the vet checks will be next weekend).  Sort of hard to believe New Mexico in August, isn't it?  It's VERY green out here these days with all the rain we've had in the last month.

 

Here's Sam and D marking a turn.  Or rather, having just marked a turn, Sam's taking a minute to itch his ears on the tree.

 

We managed not to get soaked - just a few raindrops when we were about 4 miles out from base camp at the end of the loop - although it started pouring just after we pulled out of the parking lot with the boys.  We got the bulk of the trail marked, so we could give the boys' legs a rest now for a week.  And I think we are just about there for all but the last-minute stuff for next weekend's AERC ride!
 
All for now....... 
 

A Quiet Weekend

Friday, I spent my day up at the hospital getting my Remicade infusion, so we had very little planned for this weekend.  Since I had a bad reaction to the drug a few times ago, I sort of have to plan to be out of commission for a few days instead of just 12-24 hours, to let all the pre-medication medication and then the actual medication get equilibrated in my system. 

It actually worked out just fine, as we had yet more rain this weekend (lots of evening T-storms with thunder and downpours of rain), so most of our go-to riding trails were slick and muddy.  We did wind up with some fantastic skies to photograph with all the stormy weather tho.

 

Kinda cool that it looks like my pot of gold is hidden in the horse barn, eh?

Bhen has been less than thrilled about the rain.  He doesn't like the bugs it stirs up and he doesn't care for getting wet, and he doesn't like muddy feet, so as far as he's concerned, it can quit anytime.

 

 Not that he's opinionated or anything.  

He and Sam mostly venture out in the cooler portion of the evenings to wander around and survey the pasture, but they are always happy to come over and get some scratches.

 

Or maybe a little after-dinner treat?

 
  
I have been mostly inside knitting on the test shawl and am pleased to say I'm making progress on that.  We'll hopefully be hitting the trails again next week once D is back from his work travel!

All for now....
 

More Caldera

Can you stand more pictures from one of the prettiest places in the US?  I hope so, because you'll be getting more today.  (WARNING - VERY PICTURE-HEAVY POST).

Late last week, Deb, who managed the Caldera ride, emailed me and asked if D and I would like to bring the horse boys back up the hill and ride one of the loops we (well...mostly D) hadn't ridden and pull the trail marking flags for them.  We jumped at the chance, particularly since I hadn't gotten to see much of the trails, and I wanted to get Bhen out for a ride to check on that leg of his, which has been quiet with no puffiness or owies for the last week (although he's also been mostly off - just coyote patrol a couple of nights).

We hauled up very early Saturday morning, so we'd be there when the gates to the preserve opened.  It was beautifully cool and sunny, but because of rain the previous night, the caldera itself, which is very bowl-shaped, was filled with whipped-cream clouds lingering in the basin.

 

We got to the gates about a half-hour before they were officially open, but since we were on the magic list, the park rangers let us through and we started the hour-long haul back to the base camp site.  The entire basin was still shrouded in the fog, although we could tell it was going to burn off quickly once the sun got over the upper reaches of the mountains.

And OMG!  The elk!!  The elk were EVERYWHERE.  They were down in the nice cool, wet green grass, feeding.  Lots of cows with their youngsters.

 
 
We got to base camp and got the boys tacked up and went out on our assigned trail - the orange loop - which was the first loop the 50-milers rode on days one and three.  This loop left base camp and had over 2000 feet of elevation gain, topping us out about 10,000 feet along a ridgeline.  The scenery is breathtaking up there. 

We rode out along the buried gas-pipline "road" which is a wider grass strip which is marginally maintained for the service trucks (although if you didn't see the pipeline markers, you would not know this was anything other than an open grassy area), and then turned up into the woods. 

The trails up here are fantastic.

Solidly packed dirt footing, nice and cool under the shade of old-growth trees.  (The bugs, however, were incredible.  At some points, I swear the horses were levitating straight up, just trying to get away from them.  Horse flies the size of my thumb.  Poor Sammy, who tends to sweat a lot, actually had blood drawn several times.)

We wound our way uphill, and although we didn't see all of him, we heard and saw the movement of a huge bull elk bounding away from the trail, through the undergrowth.  After a brief stop for some snacks for the horses in the grass, with a drink of water from one of the fast-moving creeks, we headed down through a gorgeous aspen forest (dodging the worst of the afternoon thunderstorms moving along the ridge behind us), and came out into a gorgeous open meadow with views of the caldera basin off to our right. (If you click to embiggen you can see the orange trail marker D and Sam are headed for on the tree.)

Lest you think this was all fun and games (although, trust me, we had a FANTASTIC time), this was a working ride.  We pulled an entire bucket worth of orange flags from the 18-mile loop.  Here's Bhen, decked out in his working horse gear: Orange flags and clothespins, shoved into three different bags, plus more flags attached to his tack, and our long lead line, so I can get on and off him and pull ground flags without undoing my reins each time (that's the turquoise blue rope on the left side of his neck).

Sammy was covered with blaze orange by the time we got back to the trailer too.

We had a great time getting the boys out on such beautiful trails, and got to spend the entire day riding in complete solitude, just the 4 of us.  We'll keep our fingers crossed the AERC ride gets sanctioned again here next year!

PS - Bhen's leg?  After 18 miles of sections of technical/rocky terrain, over logs, thru marshy sections, trotting up and downhill to keep up with Sam's power walk, totally quiet.  I found no swelling, nothing tender in his leg after we finished.  I let him stand for about 20 minutes at the trailer, to see if he would stiffen up, and then had D take him and trot him out while I watched.  Other than being somewhat confused about why exactly he was trotting out with D, he tracked nice and straight, ears perked up and forward, and nothing to show he was having any problems at all.  Cool. :)

All for now...... 
 

I wish......

I could show you more pictures of beautiful blue sky and my handsome boys getting ready to go ride like this one:

 

But, alas.  I do not. It's just been one of those weekends, I guess.

D and I hauled down to Quemado Lake, NM, to do a new-to-us ride, Ride the Divide, up in the scenic Gila National Forest.  We got a good early start on Friday a.m., and were planning to ride Saturday and Sunday with the boys.  When we got in on Friday around lunchtime, we got camp set up and tacked the boys up to take an easy jaunt out the first bit of the trail we'd be riding on Saturday a.m.  We don't do anything fast or fancy - we just walk to get the trailer stiffness out and take a look at the trail.

The boys both quieted down as soon as they saw the ribbons - they are smart and knew exactly why we were there.  We rode up to the first trail junction and then turned around to head back to camp.  We were walking quietly along, looking at the scenery, when Bhen turned his head to look at something (not in a spooky way, just to see what he could see in the woods), and caught his toe on a rock in the road, and took a major tumble down to his knees.  His left front was only lightly scraped up, but his right knee was bleeding badly from several places. 

We walked the boys back into camp, and using bottled water, I tried to get the worst of the dirt irrigated out.  It really didn't look good.  At ALL.  So I applied ice packs and got the bleeding stopped, irrigated out the wound again, packed it with antibiotic ointment, and wrapped it.  The race vet said he didn't think it could be sutured, but there was no way I was going to take Bhen out for 50 miles on that leg either. 

Saturday a.m., we loaded back up at early o'clock, and hauled back home.   I called our absolutely stellar vet (who I love, but frankly?  We have seen FAR too much of him this year) and had him on alert to come by in the afternoon to take a look at the leg for me.  When he got there, he got Bhen sedated, and wound up cutting off the skin flap that was still hanging off (it wasn't salvageable), irrigated out the wound, injected some local anesthetic into it, plus some antibiotics, and got it all closed (it was a 3-pronged burst laceration) with 7 staples.  Hopefully staples can come out in 10 days to 2 weeks, but we are being only cautiously optimistic that we'll be able to go to our next ride in June.  The main thing is that (as of today's bandage change), it looks really pretty good.  The laceration edges have pulled together.  There was only minimal seepage and that's all dried, and the swelling has gone down a lot too (so I am hopeful we had no bony involvement).

Here's my boy being very good about his leg bandage, which I'm sure is hot and itchy. 

 

So, you know.... being insane, and having 2 now unscheduled days off, D and I finished the barn for the boys (except for the roofline cap and the trim), and ran fence line.  That was the (very limited) silver lining amongst all this mess.

The original pasture fence ran out perpendicular to the left-hand opening of the barn you see above.  We bumped it out to allow the boys access to the barn (obviously), and then ran it another 30 feet or so out from the barn, and across to tie into the existing fence.  We still have more cactus to clear to give them all of the planned extra 40 feet, but they are brutal right now in terms of thorns, so we'll wait until their growing season is over. 

The new pasture almost doubles their space, plus, they now have shade from about 9:30 a.m. on during the entire day, and protection from the storms.  A double bonus, since we need to keep Bhen's bandages dry.  It's supposed to be very hot here over the next week, so we were really glad today to see them both move right into the shade after breakfast and not venture out really until dinnertime.  They celebrated their good fortune with a little mutual grooming.

 

Totally not the weekend we had planned, but on the other hand, the boys love their new barn and I know D and I both feel better we can get them in out of the sun and heat and afternoon thunderstorms when we need to.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Big Bhen heals up quickly!

All for now.....
 

Spinning Friday: AWOL

As predicted, I've really got nothing new to show you on the spinning front right now.  I did finish up the first of the 2 ounces and started on the second ones, but you know... singles sort of look like singles. 

So I'm leaving you today with some pretty awesome pictures of our sky Wednesday night as the almost-full moon rose and the clouds billowed up over the Sangre de Cristos mountains off to the east of us.  (IMHO, worth clicking to embiggen, even tho you can then see the power lines.)

 

Have a great Memorial Day weekend - to all my US readers!

All for now....  
 

Training

The boys and D and I are trying hard to stick to a training schedule so they will be ready for another endurance ride (us too!) at the end of the month.  You know... in between building barns and work and our usual insane schedule.

Saturday, we were up extra early to be sure we beat any afternoon thunderstorms and zipped down to the Caja for a quick 19-mile loop.  We have one 12-mile loop we generally like to ride, but we have found some add-on pieces to get us closer to 20 miles.  The boys were feeling pretty zippy, and the wind was up so we were hauling along pretty good for most of the trip.

Here's us on our way back from a 2-mile spur to the 1100 well.  I should explain that there are several wells dug out in the Caja for the rancher who runs his cattle out here to water them.  This one happens to be 1100 feet down, hence the "1100 well" designation on the map.  We do have to thread our way thru a bunch of cows to get in to the water, but both our boys do fine with cows, and now that there are actual gates (as opposed to jury-rigged sticks and barbed wire "gates"), it makes it pretty easy to take a water stop there.

Please note, while it appears something awful happens at the end of the video (like me coming off Bhen), all was fine.  I just cannot switch off the video aspect of my camera using just one hand, so I have to leave him to steer on his own for a few paces, and at the speed we were going, I was trying to not drop anything, including myself!

 

All for now....

Home Improvement - Upgraded Driveway

Our landscape guys have been here this week, busily working on our secondary driveway to get it fit to haul our trailer/rig back there.  The driveway, when we moved in, was difficult to use for a couple of reasons.  First, there was a very steep, narrow run-off channel along the road and while that wasn't an issue with just the truck, it was an issue with the horse trailer on, as it would scrape along this area.  Secondly, it was just a dirt 2-track, so anytime we got any snow or rain, it was completely impassable, and driving on it when it wasn't 100% dried out meant the ruts just got bigger and bigger.

The first step was for the guys to pull out a bunch of overgrown shrubs and do some clearing at the far end of where we wanted to run the driveway and the turn-around circle.

Next, they graded the existing 2-track and put in a 12-inch pipe for a culvert at the end nearest the road, and then put a rock base in and graded this so we can drive over it without that ditch threatening to rip the brake line off the trailer.

They then had several large truck loads of a crushed composite/gravel road bed base brought in and spread that for us the length of the driveway. This area off to the left of the driveway they still need to grade a bit for us, but that'll be where our hay storage building is going in another month or so.  This way, the semi can just pull straight in off the road, we can offload directly into the building and they can just back straight out again.  Easy peasy.

 

And they cleared enough space for us to get our 3-horse trailer pulled around in a nice circle once we pull in the driveway.  No backing!  We plan also to use this area for parking the trailer while we are loading up for races.  There is a frost-free water spigot back there (which they replaced the handle on for us) so we can fill water tanks, plus a heavy-duty electric outlet where there used to be an above-ground pool, so we can plug the camper in and run the refrigerator for a day or so while we are getting ready.

These all seem like sort of little things, but when you have to constantly work around and move stuff back and forth, it makes a HUGE difference to be able to have this kind of convenience.

And since I know you will ask, my wild Arab-y type horses have spent 3 days doing this:

Seriously.  The guy running the bobcat said he was a little worried he would panic them, as he is working right on the other side of their fence, but nope.... yawn... they were mostly ticked off they didn't get a full nap each day because of the noise.  They basically hung out, watched the guys work, attempted to coerce the guy driving the dumptruck to come over and let them see if he might have a treat for them out of his lunch bag.  Not much phases them anymore, I guess, being the world travelers that they are.

Our next step is to get the modular pieces for the horse run-in and the hay storage delivered, and we'll be getting there before the monsoon season this summer!

All for now.....