Take A Chance

Paint Girl has been sharing the details of adopting a Mustang filly on her blog, starting here. I got to go see the filly and her mother at the temporary holding place she is at, until she is weaned and arrives to the Painted Creek Farm. Which will hopefully be very soon!

There is something so special about a baby horse. Of course I had my Nikon and snapped a hundred photos, a least! Here are some of my favorites. I'll let Paint Girl tell you in her blog how amazing her visit was that day, but I hope these pictures show some of the special moments.

Baby feet.


Stuck. (not really!)

Liberty is in need of a trip to the beauty salon. Hopefully she'll find her special person soon. I wish My Boy needed a sister, but it's not in the cards for me right now.

Paint Girl's OH~ future Mustang whisperer?


Beautiful Liberty. Eleven years wild. I wonder what thoughts roam between those ears.....

Peek-a-boo! Don't you just love those fuzzy teddy bear ears? I mean, now do you see why this baby was so hard to resist?

Chance loves to give kisses!

Chance, meet clover. (Lovin' those wonky whiskers!)


Are you my mother?

A kind, gentle eye.

I think this little filly has a curious, calm nature, but I think she's got a little spunk in her, too! Paint Girl is going to have a good challenge and a lot of fun raising this little princess.

And I am lucky to have my first baby horse to photograph~ can't wait to get her cavorting around her new pasture!

What I'm Loving this Fall

Fall is a time of year that makes you want to cozy up, reflect the season, and reinvent yourself. Here are some things I am loving (or coveting....) for autumn.......

Branches. I can not stop picking up fallen branches and twigs and putting them in vases and jars!

It brings in a simple, bare, elemental look into my house, which I am loving better than any synthetic fall garland I could buy at the craft store. I love the glow of this old brown/orange bottle.

Don't you just love fall fashion? Jeans, knit scarves, warm cozy sweaters, and furry leather boots!

fingerless knit gloves{photo credit: homelab on Etsy}

I also found a pair of similar gloves at Urban Outfitters. I got mine in gray, or "sonnet", as they call it.

Windflower necklace
{anthropologie.com}

I found this necklace, in a peachy/cream color (not the gold one pictured), on clearance at the local Anthro store! I can't wait to wear it, even with a simple t-shirt and jeans!

Tokyo Milk Honey and The Moon parfum
{available at many places, including Anthropologie, and Amazon.com}

"Sweet honey, sugared violets, jasmine, and sandalwood?" YUM!

Flameless candles!! I got mine at an outlet store. They are made of wax and smell like vanilla. Goodness, I love just turning them on with a switch! No fear of flames or those spastic, smoking wicks!

We first used flameless candles on our horse ranch trip in August, every night at the dinner table. They were a safe way to add ambiance on a dry pine ranch. Hint: I recommend checking the flame flicker. The first set of candles I bought had such a strong and unnatural looking flicker that it almost gave me a migraine headache. The ones I got have 3 tiny bulbs, not one big one.

More fall loves to be continued in a future post..... (because fall is my favorite season!)

My Boy's Leg Wounds

Who invited these arachnids to live on my fence?

I haven't given an update on My Boy's leg. Which is ironic since I have been spending a couple of hours nearly every day driving to tend to his leg injury, it's been my major focus. He scraped the inside of his hock up pretty nasty on the wire fence while bucking alongside it. I talked to the vet this morning, she said it sounds like an abrasion. Not really a cut, that would require stitches, but more than the typical scratch horses get in the pasture. So far, his leg appears to be healing normally, although as I suspected, I've been "gooping" it up too much. Funny, how we think if we aren't putting goop on a wound, we aren't helping it. I guess I am still a bit of an overanxious horse owner. I am getting better as more "stuff" happens to my horse and we get through it.

For now, I am treating it with Betadine and just keeping an eye on it. The vet said these kind of wounds can take 2-3 weeks to heal, and we are only one week in. It had a little heat in it the first day. I assumed it would swell up as his other leg injury from two years ago swelled like a tree trunk, but there was never any swelling.

All of the black stuff you see running down his leg and around the edges of his wounds is dried and scabby oils, goop, and powder that I'd been applying that have attached firmly to the hair, along with a lot of dirt that stuck to it. As I wash it, most of that falls off.

I had been using a wound care solution w/tea tree oil, and then also some Wonder Dust proud flesh powder. Interestingly, the vet said not to apply the proud flesh powder unless you actually see proud flesh, as you can actually slow down the healing process with it. Not that I'm sure what proud flesh will look like in the beginning stages, but she said someting like pink ballooning flesh on the outer edges.

Interestingly, I have tried to avoid reading too much online as you hear 100 different opinions- use this product, don't use that product, wrap it, don't wrap it....it's overwhelming. One particular conversation thread on a message board I found had a mare with a hock rope burn injury far more severe than My Boy's. It was interesting to read about her treatments, other reader's advice, and a vet's opinion on the matter, which seemed to counter the horse owner's vet's advice. I will include the link here if you want to check it out (caution- graphic pictures.) I think I will just go with what advice the vet gave me, and be sure to call her out if it doesn't look at appears to be healing normally.

It's funny though, how My Boy knows I am helping him. The night of his injury, I saw him a few hours afterward. I brought him out to hose off the dried blood and inspect the scrapes. He didn't flinch a muscle. Over the last week, he maybe lifted his leg and held it up for a few seconds if something stung or irritated him. But he's been a good boy, never trying to move around or kick out.

My Boy mowing Paint Girl's lawn.

And did I mention he's been spoiled rotten? Just to be sure he doesn't only associate coming out of the pasture with leg-cleaning-and-medication-torture, I've been letting him graze on the last green grass remnants of summer after treatment. So he has been a happy camper. I suppose he considers to be fattening himself up for winter. He is getting that fuzzy winter coat in, that is for sure.

Sigh. It figures the summer sleekies never last long enough.

And let me tell you, he is feeling good! The leg is not holding him back at all! He's still galloping around his pasture. Fall is in the air, and horses know it.

Lastly, someone asked about his sarcoid....no resurgence yet. Actually, as his winter coat grows in, the hair is growing over the dry, scaly bare patch of skin (which I'd been coating with sunscreen all summer.) You can see the spot just to the right of and below the ring on the halter. I read somewhere in researching Xxterra that sometimes it can leave a scar, so maybe that is what it did.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that is the end I see of that bump, time will tell!

The Wood Pile

I bought this cool sign for 3.99 over the summer at the Goodwill. I love the simple, rustic look of it. It's kind of "barn at the beach", which tends to fit my style.

I haven't hung it yet because it has awful black paint on the back that marks up any white wall it gets near. I need to repaint the back, but I'll leave the edges black.

It inspired me to make some signs of my own. I have recently become in touch with my crafty, creative side again, which I've truly missed.

While dog sitting last week, I walked the dog down the alley behind the house and discovered all of this wood stacked near the garbage cans. The dog's owners had rebuilt part of their fence and this was the tear down pile. I saw potential. I asked them if the pile was a giveaway and they said goodness YES, PLEASE!

I mostly picked out some shorter, flat planks that just cried out "make me into a sign!" I like the simplicity of the one of two word signs. I've got a good variety of paint. Now I need to round up some fun stencils.

Unbeknowest to me, some of my family members have also been collecting some wood to make signs, too! Creative minds think alike!? Looks like my family needs to schedule ourselves a sign making party........

Crazy

To say that things in my life have been crazy busy is an understatement......I have been pet-sitting for two different families, running back and forth between homes and starting up work again. And then, My Boy goes and kicks the wire fence, scraping and bloodying up his hind leg pretty bad. As Paint Girl's OH said, "Whatya trying to do, make matching scars to the other leg?" Geesh! I had to cancel his farrier appointment, and any plans to ride for a week or two.

This, on top of Paint Girl's lost kitty and her new exciting Mustang adoption news (which you can read about on her blog.) All of this sadness, excitement, and general hectic-ness (is that a word?) gave me the whopper of all migraines!

But hallelujah, its a new week....we'll see whats in store. Hopefully, a sense of routine and no more injured or lost animals, thank you very much! And please, please, no more walking through these every morning on the way to my car!

Seriously, despite a lack of affection for all things arachnid in general, I do feel kind of bad that I have repeatedly destroyed homes they have been up all night spinning! After three mornings of destruction, you'd think they'd have figured out it was time to pack up and relocate, yes?! No. They persevere and rebuild in the same place! You'd think I'd remember the web was there and try to avoid it the next morning, right? No again.

Anyway, I have more to share later this week. Like why oh why, would something like this pile of wood interest me?

In Her Heart

Paint Girl has been very sad that her "angel" cat, Domino, has been missing.

As I drove through Paint Girl's neighborhood today, I scanned every yard and ditch, hoping I'd see that white and tiger-striped spotted cat sitting in someone else's yard. I would stop, call him, he would walk up to me, I'd pick him up, put him in my car, and take him home to her.

As I groomed My Boy, let him graze in the field, picked rocks from his pasture, and cleaned his shed, I kept looking around the property for some sign of the white cat. I wanted to find him.

It didn't happen.

But I did find this heart-shaped rock in My Boy's pasture. A rare find. And oddly symbolic considering the circumstances.

Paint Girl, don't give up hope that Domino will come home. Stranger things have happened in the world of felines.

But no matter what the outcome, although it feels broken now, know that in time, your heart will stop aching.

And it will be there, in your heart, that your angel kitty will forever hold a place.

Fences at Twilight

These are some photos I took at my mom's stable this summer.



The late evening, just before the sun sets and everything is glowing amber, is one of my favorite times to take pictures. It is a good challenge to try to capture the golden bronze light. Often, the sun during the middle of the day can just be too harsh to get good photos.

Everything just looks amazing under this lighting. It was kind of funny. On this particular evening, half of my family was off on a trail ride. The other half were sitting in lawn chairs, "tail-gaiting" at the barn if you will, drinking coffee and chatting, waiting for the others to get back. And I? I was standing in a recently cow-manure sprayed field photographing this old barbed wire fence. No surprise.



I loved playing with my macro (setting, not a macro lens) and the barbed wire.



My camera just wasn't focusing the way I wanted it to, but I got some neat shots anyway.



I adore the sky at twilight.




What I love best about my Nikon is the amazing wide-angle lens, it is so different from that of my point-and-shoot. It really makes the sky open up in the pictures.

It almost looks better in the photos than it did by my real eyes.



Lastly, a photo of My Boy in the late afternoon light.



This time of day is earlier, and it glows differently on the farm, where everything is green, as opposed to my mom's stable, where there are acres of yellowed, dry pastures.

I longed out My Boy today, he was feeling lazy in the late summer sun, and coughing a little from the dust. I power-sprayed (with the hose) one of his turnout halters, and conditioned some of the tangled hairs of his mane, which he's been rubbing on a pitch-covered tree. Next weekend, he gets new shoes on. We have not trail-ridden since we got back from our family trip, but hopefully there are many days of sunshine left to hit the trails. I'm going to make Paint Girl put on her fleece and get out and do some fall riding with me!