One Bold Chicken

It takes a brave chicken to decide to roost inches from where its distant relatives have been barbecued, but apparently my hen Britney is not faint of heart.  I came back from a six day trip to Oregon to find "evidence" that one of the hens had been roosting on the shelf on the side of the barbecue grill.  I brushed away the evidence and went about my day. 


About 5:00 I went out to turn on the grill in anticipation of grilling a steak, potatoes, and corn on the cob for a Fourth of July feast.  My hens go to bed early, and with the cloudy skies "dusk" seemed to come earlier than usual.  Britney was already on the shelf.


I opened the lid, turned on the gas, lit the grill, and closed the lid and she didn't move an inch.  Over the next hour and a half I opened the lid several times to turn over the foil packets of potatoes and corn and eventually to put the steak on, and turned it over a couple times, eventually removing all the food, shutting off the gas, and bringing it in to eat.


She stayed put the whole time.  You'd have thought it was a bit warm through all the cooking but she was more determined to keep her spot.  Silly bird.


The two Araucana hens, Marilyn and Britney, are the last of the sixteen chickens I brought here from Norco seven and a half years ago.  They're about nine years old now.  Britney still lays an egg for me now and then.  Her eggs are light olive green.  When Marilyn was laying, hers were blue-green.  They're sweet hens -- Araucanas are friendly -- and I can pick them up if I want.


Lately they've been pretty much living on the porch with the dogs, and of course the porch is where the barbecue is.  They've been eating the dogs' food so I don't even have to feed them any more.  I just need to make sure there is water they can reach.


Anyway, I took these pictures of Britney on the barbecue grill:

They were named Marilyn and Britney because there originally was a third one, Madonna.  As chicks, they were all yellow, so I named my three blond chicks after three blonde chicks, Marilyn Monroe, Madonna, and Britney Spears.  I later gave Madonna to a friend.


So that's a chicken tale from the Ranch.

Learning something new!

I've been taking dressage lessons at Patterson Ranch in Star Valley, AZ, since the middle of February and this week my cousin from Switzerland was here and came to watch what was probably my 18th lesson.  Sissi took some pics and video of me on "Paul," a 22 year old 16.2 hand appendix Quarter Horse gelding that I use for most of my lessons.  My instructor is Shari Patterson. 

On a 20 meter circle

I think I need to keep my elbows in more here

Ending a 20 meter circle in the other direction

Shoulder in

 

Starting haunches in

I was able to see some areas I need to work on, such as keeping my heels down and my lower legs more still.  And . . . the 15 pounds I gained since Thanksgiving is very much in evidence!  But overall, I'm fairly pleased with my progress so far.  I had described myself as riding "like a sack of meal" before I started and I think I'm a bit improved over that characterization.

Click the arrows to start the videos.  Most are brief; the fourth one is over six minutes.

 

  

  

 

And that's the latest from the Ranch.

John Deere Gets a Haircut!

In the five years that he has lived at Rancho Mucho Caca, John Deere, my weedeater, has never had a haircut.  He is a Barbados sheep, which is a breed of "hair" sheep as opposed to the "wool" sheep most people are used to thinking of.  (Most people who see him think he is a goat.)  The hair grows out into clumps that sometimes fall off or get caught on the fence, but mostly it's just a thick ugly rug after awhile, with a side order of dreadlocks:

No, he's not wearing an old carpet.

My boarder, Vanessa, took a class in sheep shearing and was eager to give John a trim, so this morning I caught him up and tied him in the hay shed while I laid out my various clippers, none of which were meant for sheep shearing.  Vanessa arrived and the fun began!

Click to see videos:

We got a lot with the clippers, with Vanessa clipping while I pulled the loose hair off.  Later we just had Vanessa hold him still while I got some with the scissors.  We didn't get it quite all off but quit at a point where all the mats were gone.  He'll never win a "best groomed" award, but he'll be a lot happier now.

After the trim, John looked like a new sheep!  Much younger and handsomer than before the haircut.  I guess I will have to give him a haircut every summer from now on.  He must have been miserable with all that hair on him.  I didn't know how much was hair and how much was just fat sheep, but he's actually quite trim.  The hair had almost doubled his width!

We didn't quite get it ALL off, but doesn't he look cooler!
 (Sorry for cutting off your head, Vanessa!)

All this hair from ONE sheep!

BEFORE

AFTER

Back in his pen now, the rodeo is over!

He should be a much cooler sheep this summer.

And that's the latest from the Ranch.

Rough Month

No, I didn't fall off the face of the earth.

Tax season ended April 17, just over a month ago.  Since then I spent a couple weeks doing some much-needed work at the Ranch, primarily installing cabinets in the garage and finally getting some semblance of order in there.  Things tend to pile up during tax season and I was desperate to put order to my scattered tools.

Then I went to California to do some accounting work.  I've sub taught four times in the past month.  I made several trips to the valley (100 miles away) to visit my sister's 95 year old mother-in-law, who was in a rehab center recovering from a broken hip and the surgery to fix it.

And then last Saturday my parents were in a car accident that has left my mother still in the hospital a week later, suffering from 10 broken ribs -- not a good thing in an 88 year old woman.  My father suffered a few cuts from glass but is otherwise unhurt.

Two days later my sister's mother-in-law had a stroke.

I spent three days in the valley last weekend, Saturday through Monday, returned on Wednesday, then again yesterday.

Last night the mother-in-law passed away.  A very sweet woman who lived a very long and full life has gone on to a better place.

My own mother seems to be improving and is being moved from ICU to a regular room tonight, and hopefully to her own rehab center by Tuesday or Wednesday.

I canceled a planned vacation that was to start this week.

Anyway . . . it's been a very hectic and stressful month since my last post.  At least all the animals have been fine.  I wish I had time to ride one of them!

This evening I will experience the total eclipse of the sun.  I might do one of those things where you watch the shadow cast by the light going through a hole in a piece of paper or cardboard.  But somehow that just doesn't seem to be all that exciting, and actually watching the eclipse could leave me blind so I may give it one quick glance when I think it's complete and I can say I "saw" the eclipse, which sounds like it's pretty much a once in a lifetime thing to see.

Hopefully smoke from the several fires won't obscure it.  Although that might make for a unique experience too.  Last week the smoke from the Sunflower fire drifted across and the sun was a bright red spot behind the haze, appearing about the size of a dime.  Guess maybe we had a different kind of eclipse that day.

Anyway . . . there's been no time or energy for blogging this past month, and things will continue to be chaotic until my mother gets home again.

And that's the latest from the Ranch.

Cantering old Dottie

It's been nearly three years since the time I cantered Dottie under a rider and it felt like she was bucking.  I tried again bareback in case the saddle was the problem, and when the problem persisted I decided her arthritis was too bad for her to canter any more.  So she was put on walk-trot only.  She was sent to Oregon after that, where her arthritis worsened and she was retired from work there.

I brought her home this past October and she was introduced to the miraculous HA shot that eased her arthritis and restored her usefulness.  Several weeks ago I rode her again, and have had her out on the trails about three times before today, but only at a walk and the occasional spontaneous trot.

Today I took her out and we rode all the way to the wash and for the first time since 2009 . . . we cantered.

She fell in and out of it a few times but she actually cantered without any stiffness or hopping for quite a ways, then pranced all the way home.  She's feeling great and I couldn't be happier for her.

She's so much spunkier than either of her daughters, yet completely controllable, stopping and standing any time I asked her to, but ready to move right out at the slightest touch.

I think I may offer her to my dressage trainer for their summer kids' program, I think she'd enjoy that.  But it's clear to me that this horse is a lot happier being used than retired.

And that's the latest from the Ranch.

Final results on Dash's situation

No surgery.

The ultrasound today shows the ovary back to a within-normal-range size and the conclusion is that it was, indeed, a corpus luteum, although the largest one my own vet and two equine reproductive specialists he consulted with had ever seen.

But no need for surgery.  And her symptoms of discomfort have disappeared.  I think her urine volume is still a bit low but that may be the result of her emptying her bladder when it wasn't really FULL for the last four months so it may need to just stretch a bit.  It may have lost a little elasticity in the meantime so I'm not overly concerned about that.

Anyway, it's a relief.  While I was willing to do the spay, the last horse I sent to surgery never came home and there's always a risk of something going amiss in any surgery.

And that's the latest from the Ranch.

Work gets in the way

I can't wait till Tuesday.

What's so special about Tuesday, you ask?

Tuesday is the end of tax season.  The Suburban Cowgirl in real life is an accountant and tax preparer and these last two weeks have been crunch time for me, and it won't be over until Tuesday, the 17th.  I'll spare you the explanation of why it is the 17th, not the 15th; you can thank the residents of Washington DC for that.  Go Google it if you don't know the reason.

But to update the Dash saga . . . after consulting with some equine reproductive specialists and sending blood to the best lab in the country, the lab results did not indicate a reason for the ovary issue.  So the specialist suggested treating it as if it were a lingering corpus luteum (google it) so she had a series of three shots this past weekend that will shrink it, if that's what this is.

Nobody seems to think it is, but better to treat what can be simply treated instead of jumping to surgery only to find it was just a CL.

So that's where we are now.  Next Thursday we will do another ultrasound.  If it did shrink, it was a CL, and all will be fine.  If it did not shrink . . . it will have to come out.

Oh, BTW, we're getting snow Saturday.  Those robins in my orchard lied.  It's not spring at all yet, no matter what the calendar says.

And now I have tax returns to do.

And that's the latest from the Ranch.