Her poor tail

Bella's tail is my life.  It's long.  It's luxurious.  It's shiny.  It's two colored, black and white.  It's down to her ankles - or maybe they're called hocks - about six inches from the ground.  I baby that tail and use only the best products on it.  Heck, my mane and tail conditioner is the same stuff the Queen of England uses in her stables.  So the advertisement says.

Now it's PARTLY CHEWED OFF!  Gone. It'll take two years to grow back to where it was! 

We've had little Ginger here for two days.  I loved her yesterday until I woke this morning hearing our son talk about how Bella's tail had been chewed and I jumped out of bed and ran outside and saw 1/4th of Bella's white tail gnawed clean off.  It was all wiggly with dried horse spit where it had been gnawed on.  Then I ran to Google and found some advice.  I put a mixture of Vaseline and hot pepper on the tips of Bella's chewed off ends and I hope Ginger will get a mouth full.  I also ordered some super stink stuff that's supposed to keep horses from chewing.

Ai yi yi.  From joy to distress in a mere two days. She's seven months old and a pretty little thing. A dun horse. Walks up to me sometimes too.

My favorite days

 I'm an auntie.  Dancer gave birth to a beautiful foal on April 16th. 

"The hand that rocks the cradle, rules the world."  William Ross Wallace 1819-1881

Mother's Day and my birthday are my two favorite days. My husband cooks anything I want for dinner and everyone has to be nice to me all day. Everyone has to agree with me. No one can remind me of things left undone or on my to-do list or what I said I'd do and haven't done. Tonight we're having jambalaya. Mmmmm.

Last week I groomed Dancer and even completely brushed out her tail that almost touches the ground.  I've been afraid of her.  She bit the owner's daughter once so I've always been uneasy around her.  But I delivered her grain to her everyday for a month.  I worked up the nerve to walk into her stall and put it right in front of her then I left.  She got used to me.  When we came back from California I think she remembered me because she was calm when I approached and didn't mind me being near her baby.  The baby's real jumpy.  Jumpier than the other foals I've met at Cecilio's.  He's warming up though.  He's curious and sweet.

Last night I dreamt I cut my hair.  Myself.  It was bleached a horrible straw colored blond.  I put it in two low pony tails and cut each, chop, chop, to mid-back length, but oddly, as dreams are often odd, the mid-back-cut was just past my ears.  I swished it around in disbelief. I had a few bald patches on my head.  Walked around and no one noticed my hair was gone.  Awful dream.

Now to make Mother's Day calls!

"Sit tall in the saddle, hold your head up high. Keep your eyes fixed where the trail meets the sky. And live like you ain't afraid to die...don't be scared, just enjoy the ride." - Lyrics of a song by Chris LeDoux

I haven't ridden yet though. I did when I was about ten. My babysitter took us somewhere. We each got one chance to get on the horse. It was a small brown horse. I got on and we ran, or I should say galloped, from one side to the other and back. Fast. It was exhilarating and I've never forgotten the feeling of it. When I got off my pants were all wet from the sweat on the horse's sides. I remember it was sweating and had white foam on its sides which I'd never seen before. We lived in El Centro and the weather there is hot and humid because it's the Imperial Valley and there's a lot of agriculture (irrigation). I think maybe riding and dancing can be like drugs. You always want them. You always want more. Sounds like Jesus too. He gets hold of you. Gets hold of your thoughts, your heart, your desires, your actions, your habits, your words.

Bella was better today. Yesterday she was nervous and jumpy and I didn't feel good about it. I was worried. I hoped she would settle in and she is more settled now. Thank goodness. It was even windy today. Horses don't like wind, but she was calmer even in the wind. We want to put a few pounds on her. Her ribs show a little bit. Being the littlest and youngest horse in the pasture she was at meant she was low girl on the totem pole. Herds always develop a pecking order. She's also a slow eater. The older horses get kind of piggy and will eat fast, but not Bella. Bella has one eating speed. Slow.

We took her into the shelter and groomed her in there. It was nice to be able to get out of the wind. This week-end there's a rodeo and there will be tons of horses driving by because the rodeo grounds are at the end of the block. Should be good for her to see all the horses and hear all the traffic. It's normally a pretty quiet street. The homeowner said she saw people stop and pet her over the fence today and said she seemed to enjoy the attention. I hope so.

I used my new fiberglass shedding tool thingy on her today and it worked well. She's shedding so much! I also used some spray that's supposed to get stains off of her white areas and it helped but didn't get it perfectly white. I may have needed to rub more or something. She likes when I brush her legs. She stands still and relaxes one hind leg like she's Mae West. She's such a poser.

Christina hasn't updated since Monday. She's never gone this long. I think she might be in pain. I don't like it.

My husband made me brownies and they are delicious with a big glass of cold, cold, milk.

In her corral

This video is right when we put her in her new home. She's saying, "What's going on? What is this place? Where am I?" She can stay here till the other horses come back.

I spoke with Ivan yesterday. Our son did some work for him so I got to stop and say hi too. He has his horse at Rush Rancho. Rush Rancho! He told me he goes there every day and brushed his horse just that afternoon. I asked him if he is special friends with them and he said yes. Oh dear. I really just blurted it out, but he's so lucky to be friends with them. He knows everyone. Rush Rancho is where we were driving by one day and saw the horse whisperer. It's laid out in nice, neat squares. Ivan said they're expecting two more horses and will not have any corrals available, but he will talk to them. It doesn't sound promising, but I know God has a good plan for Bella. She can be where she is till the end of summer. James 1:17 says, “Every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation, or shifting shadow.”

Look at me. I'm not stressed. Everything will work out and God knows how. I only have to figure it out and go one step at a time. One step at a time is okay. Plenty of people have a horse and don't have their own land. Right? Right. Okay.

Added note: My lower back has been sore for a week for no apparent reason. My sister emails and says I need a support belt. Yeah, like I'm going to wear a big, black belt with my cowgirl boots and jeans. She just wants me to look like a dork is all. I'm not bitin'. She says she's growing out her hair now too.

The new babies

This is the white faced baby and her mom.  The mom has blue eyes and the baby is going to have blue eyes too.  They're striking.  I love their white faces.  At first when I saw a photo of a white faced horse I thought it looked weird!  Seeing it in person I liked it though.

  

They're so leggy when they're born. The placenta is on the ground still.  The chickens are good to have around horses because it gets the horses used to having little creatures squawking and walking around their legs.  This way they don't kick so easily or get scared of something around their legs.  Horses cannot look down and see their own front feet you know.

  

It's hard to imagine less than 12 hours ago the baby's body was inside the mother. They were born in the morning and we saw them at about 1:00pm.  Boy would I like to brush that mane out!  It even looks like the mother horse has eyeliner around her eyes.  Nice markings.

  

This is the other baby.  Both babies were sleeping exactly like this, laid out on the ground, when we arrived.  Cecilio had to wake them up.  They were tired from getting born!  He has been watching them to ensure they drink and walk.  Their bodies are downy soft.  The mother of baby below was very friendly and didn't mind our son getting in and petting the baby. These horses are well loved.  They don't have Kentucky green pastures, but they are sweet tempered and that comes from being around good people.  They're dirty but I read that a dirty horse is a happy horse!  When they are in a show they get a full bath and get all prettied up.

 

What do baby horses dream of?

Mud in your eye

I like horse's eyes. They are beautiful even with mud on the eyelashes.  

My baby afghan after three months of effort turned disastrous.  I made knots to attach the skeins and I guess that's not the way to do it.  I read instructions that said knot or hold the two yarns together and knit and I decided to knot because I didn't think the other way would hold.  Evidently, as in apparently, I picked the bad way to connect skeins.  

I washed it before I gave it just to be sure it would hang together.  I was so sad when I took it out of the washer and saw it didn't hold together.  There were so many ends sticking out.  I reknotted three or four places because I have no other choice.  I guess I'll still send it and explain that it might not make it through another wash.  Great.  A no wash baby blanket.  I was real blue today because it took so long make.  I'm gonna break out singing MacArthur Park "Someone left my cake out in the rain" any minute now.

I am never, ever using Lion Brand Homespun again.  One skein I had to cut because it had a blob three inches long of a completely different color right in the middle of it.  And one place had the string from the center of the yarn showing.  I don't know why.  I didn't do it.  It was like that already.  When I laid it flat for photo time it was wobbly looking. I cursed my blanket out loud and my husband didn't blink an eyelash.  Couldn't he have at least looked shocked?  Then I read my pattern is the same as a dish cloth pattern, so that means I made a giant dishcloth baby blanket.  Spose I'll quit thinking about it because it doesn't do me any good to think about it.  I'm gonna try laying it on the sofa for a photo or folding it for a photo.  Something, anything, to make it appear half way good.  Three months.  All those hours.  What for.

A horse situation

Hmmm.  Life sent us a curve ball.  The landowner phoned Leah and said move all your horses.  She asked why and he gave no exact answer but said his water bill is $500.00.  Leah phoned Cecilio and Cecilio said, "We'll do it now."  Cecilio does not procrastinate.  He told her take off work and they'll move all four horses today.  And they did. Leah phoned us and we met them at the stable area.  We fed and watered Nike and Bella and talked over what to do.  Upshot is, we don't know what to do.

Baby Bella has a place to be until the 10th, but it is a tiny stall.  We're going to go see her twice a day instead of once. We feel bad her being in there cooped up.

We have to find a place for a horse to live. 

Today we drove by a place where we think we can board her, but it's not a pretty place.  It's not like Rush Rancho where the horse whisperer lives.  It does have a feeder so the hay we buy won't get wasted.  That's a point because at the pasture 25% - 40% of the hay was getting wasted when the horses used it as a toilet.  I'd look at that old rotten pooey hay and see dollar bills lying there.  It has a cover so she could stand under it from sun and rain.  The enclosure is large, maybe 16'x20'.  But it's not a pasture.  It's a paddock.  On the other hand, it's minutes away and there's a great open area next door where we can walk her.

I would like a pretty place for her though.  We want a pretty place for her to live.

We went to Cruces today and with finding out about Bella's situation we left at 9:30am and got home at 6:00pm.  

Small town life.  Hanging around talking about our Bella and what to do, someone mentioned the landowner got red tagged today by the utilities company.  Unpaid bills apparently.  For $500 bucks it's gotta be more than one month and there's gotta be a leak somewhere.  Doesn't make sense and I've learned when things don't make sense it's because sumthins missin'. Anyway, I told our son not to repeat it which could shame the property owner.  I feel bad for them.  It kind of turned out badly all the way around.  It happens.

But I know God knows of a good place for Bella.  I have to find it.  

Leah has a ranch and so kindly offered for Bella to live there, but it's an hour from here; too far for a daily visit.  Another friend has land close by, but it's got barbed wire all the way around.  I've read up and down and keep finding the same thing.  Barbed wire is one of the worst types of fencing, if not the worst, for horses.  As of right now, the unpretty place is my lone option.

There must be something else.

Twenty rows to go on the baby blankie.

Horse greetings

 

When horses greet one another they breathe into each others noses.  People can blow softly into a horse's nostrils to say hello too.  It's horse language!  The Little Brown Girl on the left is still too standoffish, but we exhale into Bella's nose and she likes it.  She will be still while we do it.  Her mama, Nike, will blow back to us.  If you think Bella has a big nose you should feel Nike exhale into your nose!  It smells of warm hay. I like it so much.  Their muzzles are so soft.

The other week-end we drove by the Rush Ranch on the way to our horses.  At Rush Ranch they raise thoroughbreds and have a very, as in very, nice layout.  As we drove by I saw a man with one single horse in the center of a large open area.  They were both very still and he was sitting on a big upside down bucket and the horse's head was hanging way down toward him as if he was having a conversation with it.  It appeared as though the horse was listening intently. My husband said, "Look, it's a horse whisperer!"  Is that what he was doing?  I think so.  I want to know more about what he was doing.

Today was duperly cold.  It began to snow on us while we were feeding the horses.  The photo above is from earlier in the week.  The two fillies were curious about my camera and were crowding me (in a nice way).  That's a change because at first they were shy of the camera and would look alarmed and would go away when my camera clicked.  Guess they got used to the clicking sound.

Our insurance and truck repair thus far has been a headache.  Our insurance sent out an estimator who says we can get the damage popped out for $600.00.  Puh-leeze.  Husband said he'll get three estimates and all three are twice as much as this insurance guy says and one of the places is one he recommended to us.  He's talking to his managers now.  Sheesh.  Yeah, he better talk to his managers or we want arbitration or something.  We'll contest it.  Six hundred dollars my eye.  It needs a new quarter panel.  People say to me that there's no way someone wouldn't know they hit the truck.  Even one of the estimators said the way she hit the axle would stop her so abruptly she would know she hit something.  Well, I told them, I'm taking her at her word.  I refuse to discuss it further because a lie is known by the person who's lying.  It doesn't matter what I think.  I just want to get truckie fixed.  We finally opted to go through our own insurance because she took two weeks to call her insurance and now we have to wait for her mum to call her insurance because she was driving her mother's car.  It's all very tiring, yes.  By going through our own insurance we can get the repair done now and not have to remind someone umpteen times to call their insurance.  Our insurance company will pursue them and get reimbursement.  Of course, six hundred dollars is a joke.  No one will fix us for that unless I take it to a high school auto shop.

Then I got a computer virus yesterday.  Luckily, Eset caught it and I did a system restore to the 21st and everything has been good.

Centrum tablets

(Bella says, "Tell me the joke so I can laugh too!"

The other day when I was gone somewhere my husband was vacuuming and something plugged up the hose.  He uses the big vacuum first then a little hand held one for the perimeter of the rooms.  He figured it must be clogged with dust and dirt but he got in it and out popped one of my Centrum scientifically-advanced complete multivitamin pills.  I use the term "pill" loosely.  It's a chewable tablet that I started taking a few years ago when I found out my aunt has osteoporosis.  It's ridiculously large.  It's not even a pill.  It's not oblong.  It's disc shaped.  I can't find a photo of it online because it's so big they don't want people to see how big it is.  It's so big that if Bella ate it I'd have to massage her neck to make it go down.

I have to chew one everyday.  It's sweet and kind of chalky.  Takes me like two minutes to consume the thing.  It comes in two colors: orange and purple.  The purple one is grape and I hate it.  I think they put in mostly grape flavored ones because people don't like grape.  When my husband hands me one, if it's purple I ask him if he's mad at me.  "What'd I do?"  I say.

Sometimes I don't eat the purple ones.  Sometimes I put them in my pocket and sometimes they get lost.  Sometimes I put it back in the bottle when my husband is gone if I'm feeling guilty about being wasteful.

Well I got busted when he found the one in the vacuum.  I didn't want to tell a lie or anything so I said all perplexed-like, "How did that get in there I wonder."  My husband wondered pretty loud.  He came up with several scenarios all of which show he knows me far too well.  I really don't know how it got in there though.  Maybe it fell out of my pants pocket somewhere.  Or maybe I was going to take it and I set it on the sofa beside me while I ate my toast then it fell on the floor by accident.  That sounds plausible.

If I get osteoporosis I'm going to sue Centrum for all the years of eating these stinky pills.  I ought to start saving our receipts as evidence.

My hair turned out quite silky after washing it today.  Hmmmm.  That makes it a good day in spite of the evil purple pill that got me in trouble.

Bella got her hooves trimmed and she was wormed yesterday.  There are four, count 'em, four horses out there now.  Oh my, it's a lot more manure.  Bella is doing well with her lead training and well with lifting her feet for us.

I almost got bopped in the head by a horse head and I screamed.  Good thing she missed me because between a swinging horse head and a standing still people head, I'm sure the horse head would win.  There is a new filly, older than Bella and Baby Brown, with us now and Nike is the oldest.  Nike is definitely the lead mare.  Nike nipped at the new filly and she swung her head away from Nike real fast.  I have to be aware of what's around me all the time.  She missed me and now I don't stand by those two any more.  Horses sure can move lightning fast when the want to.

I'm going to miss Jeremy's memorial on Saturday.  We have our archaeology site steward class that day and if we miss it it would be months before another is offered.  I'm disappointed.  But we are going to contribute a few dollars for Jeremy's funeral expenses.  If everyone who visited his Facebook page gave $10.00 each it would cover the cost of the funeral.

Today I cooked albondigas (Mexican meatball soup) for Leah and Cecilio because they were so nice to do Bella's hooves and to worm her.  I wrote on the note - To Leah and Cecilio from Bella - and left it on Leah's desk.  I hope they like it.

A horse's dust bath

Nike was full of herself today.  She sniffed around and found a place she liked and started rolling.  It was awesome.  Then she ran!  She ran toward us, stopped, turned tail and raced the other way.  It was an exhilarating sight.  She's a happy horse!

Horses cannot roll all the way over, but I saw a video of one rolling completely over.  It's unusual.

 

 

Son got a lesson in lead training on Thursday.  We were stoked.  Today he helped load horses into a trailer.  He did get stepped on by Bella.  Cecilio says it's okay because bruises heal.  Cecilio has broken just about every bone in his body at one time or another.  He even broke his back once.  He's been a horseman for 47 years.  He doesn't break horses any more.  I'm guessing the breaking in of horses is difficult with the wild ones because Bella has been easy to work with.  She's an angel.

They transferred the baby brown horse so they can bring Joey The Horse here.  Joey is Bella's sire!  Imagine, I will be able to get a family portrait of the mum, the dad, and the baby!  Gymkhana is coming up in March and son wants to participate.  Gymkhana, I looked it up, means horse games.  The kids do things like barrel racing and other things (I don't yet know what other things).  A lot of the kids here participate.  Leah says son can try out Joey and Nike and choose which horse he wants to ride for barrel racing. She will teach our son how to do barrel racing.  Leah has blessed us tremendously.  We have to think of something special to do for her.  We offered to pay Cecilio for the lead training lesson and he waved his arm and said, "That's just life."  Well now, just life if you're a New Mexico rancher, but a spectacular life experience if you are us.

I'm looking for a new small camera.  The Canon I have in mind has no viewfinder though.  That's odd.  It only has an LCD.  I wonder if I would do okay with that or if it would feel strange.  My old one won't come back to life and it could take movies for me.

Church is tomorrow.  I think Pastor is going to be on fire.  I have a feeling he will be.

A glorious day

I made it.  It's the first day of 2010.  It's sunny and windless and cold.  Beautiful and perfect. 

We almost had an incident with our baby horse yesterday.  You're not supposed to leave tools or things on the ground because though it seems like they'll just step over them, horses don't always.  They spook easily and can injure themselves seriously. 

We bought a foal feeder to put a special grain in for Bella to eat.  It has a little grate so you can keep bigger horse mouths out of it - like Mama Nike's mouth for instance.  Nike eats everything.

The foal feeder was on the ground and Bella got her foot stuck in it.  My husband turned it so she could get her foot out and she was freed.  She did not spook or get upset and thank goodness my husband was there and he reacted instantly.  Could have been an incident, but wasn't!  Poor Bella has green owners and we have much to learn.  Bella has an amazing good disposition.  I am sure now the Leah knew what she was doing when she picked this baby to give to us.  The other filly who is one year old, yesterday I saw her run and her leg barely brushed a branch that was on the ground and she was prancing and dancing like a rattlesnake might be on the ground.  What a difference in personalities.  Whew.

I was looking at the horses across the street and their dirt looks so nice.  Nice dirt, I said to my husband.  They plow it and it looks very neat and there are no poohs.  Do they have a plow that also picks up manure or do they pick up and then plow? I don't know, but I know it looks nice.  Our field needs a lot of work.  In another week we will have all the manure picked up.  We have quite a pile of trash and manure and even an old sofa from the shelter that we will haul to the dump eventually.  I don't think the horses will be lying down on a sofa anytime soon.  I would like to transform our field if I can.  If we can.  A little at a time will make a difference.

Derm appointment went well.  I have a scab on my nose now.  The doc shaved off a little thing called a fibrous papule.  My husband never even noticed it and it wasn't too bad, but just being there was bad in my opinion.  I don't need extra bumps on my face thank you very much.  She also removed a terrible, huge blackhead I've had on my back shoulder since I was 18.  I finally figured I would go get it removed too.  I thought she'd have to cut it out, but she only, ugh, squeezed it and also said there was a small cyst.  It's true I could feel a slight bump and I just thought it was because it was so big.  So it's flat now and that's good.  I'm hoping it'll heal and I won't have to feel self-conscious when I wear off the shoulder tops next summer.  She used a numbing shot on it and boy, I could feel her pulling and prodding the skin.  I'm sure glad I didn't have to feel it.  It didn't hurt at all.  I had one last teensy, almost microscopic, dot by my inner eye.  It felt like a piece of sand and it appeared suddenly one morning.  I was worried it might be connected somehow to the bump on my nose and that's really why I made the appointment.  She looked at it and said it was only a clogged pore.  Yay!  But then she poked around at it with a sharp instrument and I stayed as still as possible (my eye being right there) and man, oh man, my eye started watering and my nose running.  It hurt!  But I wanted it gone and not to get bigger and I have to say, she fixed it.  It didn't bleed a bit.  How she managed that I don't know, and by evening it was gone.  It didn't even get red which surprised me because her picking at it hurt quite a bit.  I could tell she was going as fast as she could.  My hands started to sweat then she said, "That's it.  That's all I'm going to do because of where it's located, but this should take care of it."  She was right.  Lastly she looked at my back for me and said there was one spot that could be basal cell carcinoma and that since I can't see back there she removed it as a precaution.  I think it was just a little freckle.  They'll call me in a week.  I felt great afterward.  Gotta keep up with the body maintenance, moreso when it gets some age on it, just like a car.  I hope the hubcaps don't start falling off and rolling down the freeway next.

I'm reading a new book and enjoying it.  It reminds me a little of the Mitford series books because the story is peppered with biblical principles.  When I read a book like this I carry it in my mind and I get opportunities to apply what I'm reading to my own life.

I was talking with a lady, a friend in the Visitor's Center just the other day.  She made the statement that you create your own world.  She's into Buddhist philosophy.  Per my book, To A Distant Land, it says that we want to believe we can control our own lives, and that humans don't want to be reminded of their sin or that they need God.  It fit the verbal exchange I had with my friend to a tee. In Buddhism there is no forgiveness.  There is no saving grace.  There is no salvation.  They want to believe that you solely are in control of your universe.  Seems a little lonely to me.

First milestone reached

Calendar mom and daughter (with no make-up).  Bella with her new halter on.

Today son put the halter on Bella. She's an amazing filly. She got slightly annoyed when he was having trouble with the buckle, but other than that she was easy. It's his first milestone reached. It's her first milestone reached. They say you must teach a horse to be well mannered or they're dangerous. Also they say, if a horse does not mind you well when you're on the ground they'll be as bad or worse when you're in the saddle.

We have to get our:

• Goals
• Objectives
• Milestones
• Strategy

worked out. I'm only up to learning how horses think at this point.  I think that goes under strategy.  I have to work out all the rest. We'll work it out together because son started a ledger to track everything from purchases to time spent with Bella to milestones attained.  He will use it for 4-H I think.  Isn't it great getting a free horse for a gift?  In five days we've spent $251.82.  Didn't even try very hard either.

I'm working on our calendar at Shutterfly, but my connection is so slow I'm going to have to abandon the effort for tonight.  Tomorrow we go to Cruces for dermatology appointments.  I have a small little bump on my nose that has to go.  At first I thought it was a zit, but it's not.  Why do these things start happening when you're 50 years old.  Whazz up?   Today for instance - I reach down to pull up my wrinkled socks, but I found out I wasn't wearing socks!

What a great day.  It was a great day today.  Tomorrow we will attach the lead (the rope) to her halter and test that out.  I have to read up on how to properly lead a horse.

Hay, sniffs, and plans

School seemed long! We both got drowsy at about 2:00pm, but we forged ahead and were glad when 3:00pm arrived. It was frightfully cold and I think the heaters made us warm and sleepy.

Son dogsat one of his favorite dogs for the first time and the owners paid him with two baseball caps (which he collects). He really expected and would have preferred cash and I don't know why the people didn't ask him if he'd rather have caps than money. If they ask him for his services again he's going to specify cash payment only. Odd. And he was disappointed.

Bella! Bella, her mum, and the brown filly which the kids are calling "Runs So Fast," all three came to greet me today. I was exceedingly pleased. I expected they might ignore me since I never give them treats. They are as curious as children. I could barely rake at first because they all three were sniffing and checking out what I was doing. I don't want three horses around me at once, so I retreated to the shelter and petted them one at a time. I am very cautious. Accidents seem to happen so fast.

Bella, I think maybe she was putting her lips on me too much today. It's normal foal behavior I think. In fact I cannot tell if she's just sniffing a lot, but you have to not let them put their lips on you or it can turn into nipping. I get worried when I see her lips start to move. I do not want a horse nip. No, no! I have a plan for tomorrow. I will say, "Shhhh" and flick her face to move it away. I read it in the advice forum and also was instructed to do it.

She let me pet her a lot today. I spent an hour out there. It was cold. Tomorrow I'm taking her harness to introduce it to her and let her sniff it, then rub it on her so she gets used to it and isn't afraid of it. If I can I'll put it on her. If not, I will try putting it on her another day. I'm in no rush.

We bought hay for her today. I saw them deliver it. A ton of hay doesn't look like as much as I thought it would. Eek!

Bella

I think we might name her Bella. Bella is Italian for beautiful and she is as beautiful as a little girl horse could be.

Our son greets the pastor on Sunday mornings and Pastor will every so often say very casually, "So do you have a horse yet?"

This morning during greeting time he went up to our pastor and told him we got a baby horse for Christmas. Pastor Mike said when he can ride her they will go riding together. I thought that was awful nice.

Today we did a lot of clean-up in the pasture and my husband helped. He did the things that you need a man to do like remove a piece of lumber that stuck out into the middle of the shelter. Now the horses have a nice, clear, open shelter to get into. We'll be raking and scooping up pooh for days. Should I say manure? Maybe cowgirls say manure! I'll google it and find out. I have to admit I do not mind the smell of manure. When we lived in California I'd have never stepped anywhere near a pile of manure and now I'm right in there scooping and wheel barrowing like nobody's business.

Here comes Monday. Tomorrow's a school day and son has a new project to begin - writing his first history paper. I'm curious to see what topic he chooses.

After school at 3:00pm I'm going to see the horses.

The most amazing day

 

I wished for a horse, but I didn't imagine we would ever have one. Horses are expensive. How can we have a horse?

But we have one! We have one. It was a Christmas gift from Leah the ranger who owns 16 horses. I can't believe she gave us one and it's Nike's baby. Nike is the horse our son showed at the fair last October. Nike has won champion in fairs across the state. She's a beauty.

It was a once-in-a-lifetime amazing gift. We were standing on the property where the two babies are. Leah had given us a box, but we were going to open it on Christmas. We got out of the truck and Leah said, "So did you open your present?" And she was excited. We said, "Noooo." She said, "Open it. Open it now!" Our son opened it and inside was a halter and lead. Purple. My favorite color. But I still stood with feet frozen, dazed, half suspecting, but dazed, because I couldn't connect the dots. She gave us a halter, but we don't have a horse. She had us open it not at home, but where the horses are. I just stood there mute. Utterly dumbfounded. You really have to explain things full out to old Lil. Next she said, "I'm giving you Nike's baby."

I was floored. I started to cry right off! I couldn't help it. It was so unexpected. I looked over and pointed, and said, "You're giving us Nike's baby?" I was incredulous. I think I might have been more excited than our son was. The baby is for both of us and for our whole family. She gave us the black and white Paint in the photo. The brown colt is one year old and our new baby girl horse is nine months old. One day she will look like her mama. . .

Bella will look like this, her mama, some day.

And I have been floating in heaven ever since. I can't believe we have our own horse that I can groom any time I want. Well, technically, I can't groom her yet. She's like a baby in diapers and she doesn't know anything. We first have to let her get used to us and it's only been two days, but it's going well. She's taken to our son and vice-versa. Today the colts literally ran to him when he entered the property. Do horse children recognize people children? I wonder.

How can we afford a horse? I don't know, but Leah checked it all out with my husband first and he gave his approval. He's very wise with our money. I can tell he's happy too. We are truly blessed to know the people that we know here. They are kind and helpful and I'd say extremely generous.

My husband did say one thing I didn't like and that is, "You know Liliana, this means we're going to have to get a house here." I said, "Whaaat!" Because since when does having a horse equal needing a house? That does not compute. I ask you, did the Native Americans need a house because they had horses. No! They lived in teepees. I could live in a teepee too if it had a microwave oven, hot water, electricity, and DSL. I digress.

Our son will get to go to a 4-H camp for a week in the summertime. He will learn so much about horses - I told him he'll have to teach me what he learns.

I'm so happy. All my heart is happiness. And I didn't even pray for a horse. I never asked the Lord for one because I thought it an impossibility. Silly me. I wanted a baby from my husband too, and I never asked God because I thought it was an impossibility too, and whattya know - his vasectomy from 17 years earlier reversed itself all by itself. Hehe!

Our son is a lean mean working machine. Together we did a lot of clean-up today and I'm sore from cleaning the shelter area, but I will sleep well and joyfully. Maybe I'll even snore!

Blessed be the name of the Lord.