A change in the weather…

Fall is definitely here. Most of the foliage here are evergreens, but not all. There are the Aspen, and along the Rio Ruidoso large cottonwoods that are now golden in color. The scrub oak too has started to turn sporting reds, and gold’s amidst deep greens. We have four true seasons, just not the oaks, and maples found in the eastern forests to fill this hills in glimmering shades of fall. It is raining now, not the torrential rain of the monsoon, but the long soaking rain of a winter storm. It started just before I went to feed (naturally). At first it was just a soft gentle rain with no wind to speak of. The clouds were gathering some black against a bright blue sky, and a beautiful bright double rainbow greeted me as I went down to the barn. The rain didn’t last long, but as the evening progressed you could feel a chill in the air not felt since last spring. The smell of rain was thick in the air, and there was a stillness, a forewarning of the storm to come.

I closed the garage for Bear, and Taggot. They are strictly outside dogs with a very large doghouse, the whole garage. Still the winds come from the south so I close the door to keep the worst of the wind out. It’s still cold, but they have cushions to lie on, and very thick coats. Taggot is a Shepherd/Chow mix (we think). He has a deep undercoat in the winter that keeps the rain, and the cold out. Bear is a Chesapeake Bay Retriever from Ohio. Cold weather bothers him not in the least.  He was bred to endure the cold of the Chesapeake Bay so this is nothing for him. The rest of the dogs have a room inside where they sleep. We have no heat in the house (save the stoves) so it gets chilly in there, but they have plenty of blankets, and doggie beds to keep them warm. Poor little Skye has to sleep in a crate. I hate putting him in there, but he won’t hold it if he is in the house so I have no choice. He has a little doggie bed that I wash quite often.

This has been a quiet week. By that I mean there were no major disasters, well not too many anyway. The first came last Tuesday. Wednesday April came over with her hand all bandaged up. She was trying to repair a fence her puppy tore down. She was holding the T-post in one hand attempting to put the driver over it, and she missed. They took x-rays, and luckily she didn’t break any bones, but she tore every muscle, tendon, and ligament in her hand. Poor thing she wasn’t able to sleep for days because of the throbbing pain. She tried playing with the horses, but couldn’t really do much. It will take 6 – 8 weeks for her hand to heal, and she’s not a patient person. We’ll see how long it is before she is using her hand despite what the doctors told her.

The only other thing that came up was the truck. When I went to get hay last I had to put the battery charger on the truck (it was totally dead). Now I put in a new battery just this last summer so it couldn’t, or at least shouldn’t be the battery. The only other choice is the alternator. Not something I was very happy about. Rudy told me what to do to test the alternator. You loosen the battery cable, start the truck, and then disconnect the cable. If it keeps running then it’s the battery, and if it dies it’s the alternator. When I disconnected the cable it gave one sputter, and died faster than I could get the cable entirely off. Wonderful, just what I needed. I have four vehicles here, and now only one that doesn’t have an issue. The jeep needs a new head, the Z needs I don’t know what all, and now the truck (which is the only way I can get hay) is down. The Fiero runs just fine, but I can’t even fit a bag of feed in it. Well I got a new (re-built) alternator with a lifetime guarantee, and now I have to get up early to feed so I can take the truck in to Chuck’s tomorrow so he can put it in. It’s real easy so long as you have much stronger arms than I have, and the tools to take it off, and put on a new one. I may be able to do a lot, but not put in an alternator.

All in all it hasn’t been too bad of a week. The girls are all happy, and the boys are finally putting weight back on. Jeri is miffed because he’s getting grass hay instead of alfalfa, but prices have skyrocketed. Saturday I’m probably going to have to pay $12 a bale. When you get 30 bales a week that’s a lot of money. I haven’t heard from Katie either, and she’s about to run out of hay, so I may have to get hay for her horses too.  I also received hospital bills. For some reason it doesn’t look like they submitted anything to the insurance company for these particular bills. The main bill was almost $30,000, which thankfully we only have to pay about $500 of. I’ll have to call these other physician offices to see what these bills are all about. They’re just going to have to wait like everyone else if they want any money from us. It’s a good thing I have faith, otherwise I’d probably have a coronary.

Looks like it’s going to rain all night. I really don’t mind. The weekend is supposed to be nice, and hopefully I can get on Star’s back. When living in the desert you learn real fast to be thankful for whatever rain comes your way because you don’t know when it will rain again. Up here you also learn to be thankful for still warm days with no wind, and take advantage of every one winter, and spring. Training is hard here in the winter because of the wind. In Tucson winter was the perfect time to train. Summers are too hot unless you ride in the wee hours of the morning so you train in the winter, and spring. Here you just train whenever the weather permits.  I have been very lax lately. For some reason, I just don’t have the energy to do anything. Of course it has been a bad year what with all my pipes breaking, and the water table going so low. Lets face it I have had a mite more to do than normal. I just have to get back on a schedule. One good thing, with all the rain I won’t be able to clean stalls. Now isn’t that a shame!