Tuesday June 5, 2007

Picked up Karen and Aud at the airport today. They are staying for two weeks and I am very excited to have them here. They're good friends and also a LOT of help around the ranch. Pouring rain all day and in the 50's. Let the mamma duck with her 7 little babies out of their room today - they are really cute zooming around the pond.

Monday June 4, 2007

Went to town to get vet supplies we need to be ready for the birthing horses. Took a good nap in the afternoon and cleaned the house, fed animals in the evening. In bed early.

Sunday June 3, 2007

We spent most of the day in town with my sister's family and got back to the ranch at almost nine. I was exhausted and in pain, as I am so often by the end of the day these days. Since my back injury, my energy is lower even that usual for me, and the slightest bit of activity leaves me sore and hurting. I know this is normal and it will take time to heal, but I find this discouraging, none the less.

We fed the goats and the donkeys (they are penned up in a stall right now because they are becoming dangerously fat on all the spring grass - donkeys were made to subsist on desert rations, not these lush pastures). We fed the rabbits and we checked the pregnant mares. Echo's foal alert monitor is partially pulled out and this is going to require a good bit of work on our part to re-sucher. In any case, we hope it will hold until tomorrow (or that if it comes out the alarm it sets off alerts us before the monitor goes dead). For now I need some rest and tomorrow I will go to town to get more suchering materials and implant her monitor again.

A Perfect Evening

Last night around 9:30 it was still light out as it is out here this time of year, a blissful 70 degrees with a light breeze. The air was full of the fresh, beautiful smell of spring in the mountains. I asked Dave if he wanted to go on a walk and, to my utter surprise, he said he did. We walked our land until after 10, checking on how the drainage was progressing and the grass coming in back in the far pastures. At one point, as the light was just beginning to fade, I looked across the Big Barn Pasture and saw my cat, Smokey, sitting on a log mid-way across the field, watching for our return. Twenty feet behind him on a little bridge that crosses the creek into our yard, sat Magellan and Indigo, two of our other house cats, also marking our progress and awaiting our return.

We made our way back to the house just as the light was beginning to fade, and neither of us was ready for bed. It was Saturday night and all we wanted to do was sit up and enjoy the night air. We decided to drive down to Frenchtown to a bar with an outdoor deck.

Neither of us has really been to bars much since our... well, okay, neither of us really went to barns much during our college days either. In any case, this was a bit of a gamble, as we had no interest in the night-life - only in the night. But we wanted to go out, and we wanted a snack, and we wanted to enjoy the night a while longer before we went to bed. So we drove 20 minutes to town and I read to Dave all the way down (we always have a book going which we are reading aloud together).

We got there to find that the deck was deserted and we had the warm night all to ourselves. We ordered chips and salsa and I had a margarita. We sat for an hour and talked about our day, and the summer, and various little projects we wanted to do around the ranch. We held hands.

This, I think, was a perfect night. The kind we have out here so often during the summer. The sitting around the campfire, or on the porch, or in the hammock gazing up at the star-spangled sky, kind. The kind with peace and contentment and no, no, no rush anywhere at all. And I look forward to many more like it as the summer moves along.

Saturday June 2, 2007

Got up this morning to wait for the farrier to come shoe some horses. He was three hours late (not uncommon with farriers and vets - you just never know how long a job will take) so Dave and I moved all my tack into my new tack room while we waited. Then we trimmed both donkeys and put shoes on Mariah's front feet. I was so exhausted after that I slept for two hours, but was woken my by the baby ducks. I thought they were hurt - they were hollering - but when I ran to check, they were all fine. We got dinner and are now just waiting for the afternoon to cool off before we go do the evening feeding and a few other chores.

It got above 85 today and at this high altitude, the sun just beats down. Lovely, but by about 2pm it is intensely hot outside until around 7pm, when it cools down a bit. Luckily, out here it stays light till at least 10pm this time of year, so there is time to come in during the intense heat and go back out later.

Friday June 1, 2007

Ranch work was light today. We did the basics, unloaded 10 bales of straw from the truck (for the birthing stalls) and took it easy. I am discouraged at how worn out I have been lately. Since my accident I can't seem to do any little thing without becoming exhausted.

Thursday May 31, 2007

Fed horses and checked on mares today. Lock our new mother duck and her 7 brand new ducklings into the greenhouse so they would be safe. Moved a rabbit to a new hutch. Filled bird feeders. Hiked over to a neighbor's for dinner and had bbq chicken and such. Good day.