Guess who it was? It was...

silly Cali! I brushed and brushed her this weekend! Here are some pics. Hubby held the lead rope while I brushed her and picked up all 4 feet! She hardly moved. I was able to clean her back two feet. YEAH! I wonder if the birds will use her hair in their nests?

Who? What is it?

Do you know who this is? I brushed her and groomed her Saturday. The wind was blowing and I got this photo! I'll tell you tomorrow (hehehehehe!)

UPDATE on horse slaughter here in America. Don't think it won't happen here. It's already happening ILLEGALLY! WARNING: graphic images. Do not click on the photos! This is an article from NBC, Miami.
http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/From-Race-Horse-To-Main-Course.html Also, Joe, from TB Friends today talks about a KB who proudly announces "harvesting horses" like they are tomatoes! It's just sick, sick, sick! HORSES are NOT tomatoes! I'm really upset that some people are in horse slaughter just for the $$$ and have NO compassion or sympathy for these animals! If you wish to read more about horse slaughter here in America, please read my post from 032809..."Please don't eat our horses.". I'll leave it up to you.

Goofy Scout~~Camera Critters 032909

We took the two mustangs, Cali and Scout, down to the arena yesterday. Scout rolled and rolled and rolled and rolled. Here she is...what a goofball! Camera Critters for March 29, 2009.

Please don't eat our horses!

I've waited for over a year to post my feelings about horse slaughter. Now that Montana is considering starting up a horse slaughter plant, once again on American soil, I have to speak out:

Please don't eat our horses! I know I have readers from Europe and Japan. Please help us! My horses are like my children! I cannot imagine them going to slaughter, strung up and bled out, and then being eaten by someone! I gave up eating RED MEAT because of them! I no longer eat red meat because every time I did, I gagged because I was thinking, "How did this animal die? Was it a horrible death? Did they suffer? What about my horses? Would they suffer this way?" So, I no longer eat red meat and I feel much healthier now! I no longer have headaches, fatigue (while digesting "dead cow"), and joint and muscle pain. RED MEAT IS NOT HEALTHY FOR YOU! There was just a news story about this last week! PLEASE, switch to a healthier, plant-based diet! Do it for yourself! Do it for YOUR FAMILY! But. please, DON'T EAT OUR HORSES! I'm including this post from American Herds that was posted this week. Eating American horses is NOT the solution! Oh, please!!! A plant based diet is MUCH more healthy than a meat based one! Especially when you consider all the drugs which we put into our horses! Wormers, antibiotics...would you want to eat those?

I made ALL of my horses a solemn promise: YOU WILL NOT GO TO AUCTION OR SLAUGHTER. I intend to hold up that promise. NO WAY. NO HOW. I saved them all. I have two mustangs myself! Here's the post from American Herds:

"The Mustang Brand"
The following text is a repost, and includes a few excerpts from the American Herds blog, dated Wednesday, March 25, 2009.

In December 2008, The Horse Industry Policy, a resolution submitted by Rep. Wallis to the states National Conference of State Legislators (NCSL) was passed after a vote session from the members of state legislators from all 50 U.S. states. The main focus of the resolution is to urge Congress not to pass federal legislation that would prohibit horse slaughter in the U.S. or interfere in the transport or export of horses to slaughter.Prior to submitting her resolution of the Horse Industry Policy to the NCSL, Rep. Wallis first enlisted the aid of pro-slaughter state horse councils by asking them to provide letters showing their support for the return of horse slaughter in the U.S. These were then presented to the NCSL to substantiate the position that horse slaughter has broad based support in equine communities nationwide.While Wallis's plan for America's wild horses and burros is not revealed in the resolutions of The Horse Industry Policy, the first hint of what her intentions are behind the scenes begins to unfold with Wallis thanking the man she claimed was "instrumental" in getting the resolution passed, Conrad Burns. Burns, a lobbyist who promotes the horse slaughter industry, is a former U.S. Senator from Montana responsible for sneaking an 11th hour amendment into the 2004 Agriculture Appropriations bill without review or a vote by either the people or Congress that was quickly signed into law by President Bush. The Burns Rider, as it became known, gutted almost forty years of wild horse and burro protections and now mandated their “unconditional sale until all excess horses had been disposed of”, including authorizing their sale for slaughter.Hidden behind Wallis's Horse Industry Policy to slaughter America’s domestic horses is also several documents extolling the virtues of using the backlog of excess mustangs and burros in long-term holding to fed the worlds poor and hungry.Wallis pitches mustang meat patties in #9 of her talking points: “Remind them that 10 million people starve to death every year in this world…maybe our excess BLM wild horses could be put to much better use by providing high quality, nutritious animal protein, untainted by BSE-type disease concerns of other livestock to people who could never afford to buy it. Once again, Americans can use an abundant and sustainable resource to come to the aid of the poor and starving of the world.”Wallis’s Open Letter To Congress and State Legislators

Please, pass this information on or post it on your blog. The more people that realize that eating American horses is NOT the answer, the better! Thank you and God bless you for helping! And, on another personal note, I KNOW how hard Joe, of TB Friends, works. I've been to his place. I read his blog EVERY morning. I can feel the pain and heartache that Joe has when he writes about starving geldings or mares stuck in mud or families in dire straits. I also feel the heartache that Joe has when he visits feedlots and gets 1 horse from a truckload of over 30 going to slaughter. He has written about the eyes of the other horses begging him to save them, too. Horses are animals that have and feel EMOTIONS! Don't you think they realize that they are on a death truck, headed for disaster? They can smell fear. They know.
Here's the link to my MySpace, ANTI-SLAUGHTER website: http://www.myspace.com/deserthorses5
~~Cheryl Ann~~

Navajo ponies and thunderheads~~Canyon de Chelly~~SkyWatch Friday

Navajo ponies and Canyon de Chelly, two of my favorite things in one photo! When we arrived last August, the afternoon sky was filled with storm clouds. That night there was a terrific thunderstorm and as we headed out early the next morning, to drive out to the end of the canyon, the desert smelled fresh and clean! Bullfrogs were calling in the pond next to our hotel and the earth had a good scrubbing! The canyon's walls were filled with water. Very unusual for August in the desert! It looks like we'll be heading back to Arizona during spring break...Grand Canyon and Monument Valley! SkyWatch Friday for March 27, 2009

horse noses and shadows!

What can I say? Goofy horses!

spring buds at the ranch

I wandered around the horse ranch last Thursday and I found these trees with their little buds against a cloudy sky. It was a warm day. By Sunday, the nearby mountains had a dusting of snow.

Two horses~~That's My World March 24, 2009

Sunni and Beauty and me on a warm winter afternoon. Sunni just followed me out of the arena. He and Beauty will make great trail horses. They get along so well! She leads, he follows! That's My World for Tuesday, March 24, 2009.

Spring in the mountains

Saturday was a beautiful, warm spring day. Yesterday it was cold enough to snow! I drove around Saturday afternoon after cleaning the horse corrals and found these trees blooming up in the mountains. The elevation here is about 4,500 feet. These mountains got a light dusting of snow yesterday, but today it is predicted to be sunny and warm. Typical March! We took our son up with us yesterday because he wanted to go brush Cali, but it was so cold and windy we just gave them some sweet feed and hopped back into our car! The forecast is for warm and sunny weather for the rest of the week, so we'll probably drive back up midweek and visit the horses.

Almond blossoms~~Scenic Sunday for March 22, 2009

I walked around the ranch yesterday morning and walked down to the almond trees which are in bloom. They were so pretty and the bees were so busy! I stopped to take a few photos of them before the approaching storm came. Last year a late storm blew the almonds off the trees and there was no harvest. I hope the same doesn't happen this year! Aren't they pretty and peaceful? Scenic Sunday for March 22, 2009.

Scrapped!

I've been officially scrapped by Captain Jack Splash(http://journeysofcactusjack.blogspot.com/)I voluntarily did a scrap back in January (http://deserthorses.blogspot.com/2009/01/scrapped.html), but I spent so much time dwelling on oddball family stuff, it really wasn't an honest scrap, so here goes! THANKS to Captain Jack Splash for FINALLY making me do this!

(1) I have a fear of flying. I've only been in an airplane three times! Once when I was 5, my parents and I visited Hawaii. Then, when I was in college, we flew to Philadelphia to see my aunt. And, finally, hubby and our daughter and I went to New Orleans before Katrina. They announced that if I didn't go with them, they would go by themselves, so I schlepped to the airport with them, sat in my seat, and retreated to my favorite place (like in the movie French Kiss) and never looked out the window until we were over the Coachella Valley. Then I HAD to see EVERYTHING! By the time we were over Texas, I was glued to the window, looking down! Go figure!

(2) I recently became a grandma, on February 26, 2009. That is also hubby's birthday, so he and our first grandchild will share the same birthday! I always wanted to be like my own grandmother and now I have the opportunity! She always wore an apron and I've scoured the Internet for some that look like hers and I have quite a collection! She gave me some of hers before she died, but, when our house was flooded in 1979, they must have floated away! No, really! We found books from our garage a mile away a year later. One of them was "The Coming Storm"!!!! No kidding! They just floated down to the nearby college parking lot, which is in a dip.

(3) I was always very timid. As an only child, I had a mature vocabulary, thanks to being around my mom who was a teacher and my dad, who was an accountant. But, around other kids, I was painfully shy. At least I was until I met my husband, who is a loud Irish/Dutch/German! He taught me to speak my mind and now I can't SHUT UP!

(4) Referring to the above, like Amanda, sometimes things come out of my mouth that I wish wouldn't! I was a union rep for my school and school district for several years and I'm astonished now at the things I said! I just blame it on the hot flashes!

(5) I LOVE to write and listen to music! Maybe that's why I have 8 blogs, although recently I'm thinking about shutting down one of them: Rawfoodjourney, which I have now renamed Journey through Food, Wine, and Life. I'm not really "raw" anymore, but I do still eat healthy food. It's my second food blog and honestly, neither one really fits into the food niche. With only 5 followers a day on it, it's a little disheartening! With all the cooking and eating and enjoying wine that we do, I thought people would be interested, but it's a hard spot to fill. The "foodies" don't really follow it and the "wine geeks" don't follow it, so THANK YOU to the 5 people who do! I'm not really sure what to do with it....???? Any ideas?

(6) I always wanted to rescue horses, ever since I was a little girl! Like I previously mentioned, my great-uncle was a thoroughbred race horse trainer. I always kinda knew what happened to those horses who were too slow or who got injured, but it wasn't until a few years ago that I started reading up on horse slaughter and was horrified! That's why we adopted all of our horses! I'd LOVE to have a couple more, but I board them all that that gets expensive! I follow TB Friends, Joe's blog, daily and most mornings cry into my coffee. Hubby and I actually visited Joe's place last summer and he is the most wonderful and caring man I've met in a long time! My class recycles water bottles and cans and we send the proceeds to Joe. I've been doing that for a year now and ALL the kids at school bring me water bottles from home or on the playground! I can't wait for state testing this year because last year we each got 5 cases of water and I ran around to the other classrooms and begged the teachers to save the old bottles and send them to me! That group of kids earned $270 which we sent to Joe! This year, we're already close to $200 and we haven't even started testing (during the heat of April and May), so we should double our money this year! THANK YOU, JOE, for what you do!

(7) I NEVER wanted to be a teacher. Both my aunt and mom were teachers and I never wanted to compete with my mother. I went to college as a "piano performance" major, but quickly discovered that so was every other girl in my dorm! So, I switched to political science/government and met a young man (my future husband), who was also in EVERY class I took! Hmmmm....couldn't get rid of him! Soon we were studying together and falling in love! We've been together now for 36 years, have two grown children, and 1 grandson! My husband, Art, is still the love of my life! However, when our two children were in preschool and kindergarten, I REALLY had to stop and take a look at what I wanted to do as a career. I'd been a legal secretary for 7 years and I knew I didn't want to do that for the rest of my life, so I went back to college at age 33 and got my teaching credential. What can I say? It's in my blood. Our daughter is also a teacher! I really love this group of kids that I have this year. They make teaching fun!

(8) I've never broken an arm or leg, but last summer, I started having difficulty riding horses. My cousin had taken Beauty out for training and I was riding her, one of my cousin's horses, and a friend's horse, and my legs would get all numb and tingly. Then they would cramp and I'd have trouble getting off the horse! I could just feel them going numb while I was riding. I finally woke up one morning with my left leg totally numb! My thigh muscle had cramped "something awful". My doctor referred me out to a back specialist and after an MRI, it was discovered that I had a slipped disc and arthritis in my back. I went in for the series of cortisone shots and I had to take some anti-inflammatory drugs. My left leg is STILL tingly, but not like it was, and I have a follow up appointment with my neurologist in a couple of weeks. Until then, NO horseback riding! I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to ride for long rides, but I'm hoping I can at least go on some short ones! So far Beauty is our only horse who is rideable, thanks to my cousin Valerie, but this summer she'll take either Gigondas or Sunni for training, so that hubby can ride along with me and drag me back to the ranch should I fall and/or cramp up! (snicker)

(9) I've always loved animals and animals have always found me! One evening we heard a "mmmmmeeeeeeeeooooowwwww" at the door and it was a cat. Nobody claimed him, so we kept him. Dogs always show up in our front yard. I've reunited them with their owners many times. Posters go up and the owners call! I've always had cats and dogs. Rommel is our third German Shepherd and Ripley is our little black lab, who was free from a local swap meet! We are keeping our son's Weimeraner with us in our yard because he lives in a condo with NO yard at all! So, we currently have 3 dogs, 4 cats, and 5 horses! Soon to be...5 cats as I'm taking one of Valerie's kittens!

(10) I never drank wine until I met my husband! Nope. Not a drop. HA! Look at me now! His sister owns 10 acres of Merlot up in Napa and makes her own label of wine: Ilona (Napa Valley Howell Mountain) merlot. It's a BIG wine, full of flavor! We enjoy visiting northern California and the wineries there and in Paso Robles. Most of our wine trips are on my "Sand to Sea to Mountains" blog. This spring break, we're driving up to San Luis Obispo for a few days.

Okay...now...anybody who wishes to do an HONEST SCRAP, please help yourself to the badge and GO FOR IT!

Late afternoon antics~~the way to end a day!

Hubby and I drove up to see the horses yesterday afternoon. It was late in the afternoon before we even got there, but with the time change, we now have the opportunity to visit them while it is still light. I LOVE the long afternoon shadows! The horses LOVE gettint out in the afternoon and Sunni and Beauty had a romp in the arena in the afternoon shadows. My husband gave me his old Olympus zoom lens camera which has a faster recovery rate than any of my other current cameras and I was able to capture some of the action for the first time! They enjoyed their afternoon in the arena and finally settled down to eat the weeds! Since these are are the two horses hubby and I will be trail riding, it's always fun to see how they interact. What a great way to end the day~and I sure enjoyed using the camera! It has the widest range of any of my cameras and even though it is several years old, it takes crisp and clear photos! It's an Olympus E-10 (4 megapixel) 35mm-140mm. But, I'm a real fan of Olympus and I love how crisp and clear the photos are! Even though this camera is 9 years old, look at the clarity! Here's a link to a website that shows its specifications: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Olympus/oly_e10.asp While I'm still waiting for the new camera, it's fun to experiment with other ones.

Smooching!

Yup. That's me smooching with my Sunni! He's such a love!

And, yes, I do wear my hat up there. At 4,000 feet, if I don't put it on right away, I get so involved with my chores that I forget.

Onlookers!

So, while the mustangs were running around in the arena and kicking up dirt, guess what Beauty and Sunni were doing? When they weren't cuddling with hubby, they were all ears!

Mustang fun on a warm, spring Saturday~That's My World Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Ahhhh....to run loose again! The wind in their hair, the warm sun, lots of weeds to eat...mustang fun! They sure had a good time on Saturday! That's My World for Tuesday, March 17, 2009.

morning with Cali

It was the mustangs' turn Saturday for some attention and Cali was the first to come up to me and ask to be haltered. So, after haltering her, I walked her down to the hitching post for a refresher on being tied. She relaxed and was fine. GOOD GIRL! We let her have a few minutes of peace and quiet down in the arena. After all, she has to put up with Scout ALL DAY! (poor thing!) Then, later we brought THE PRINCESS (Scout) to the arena and chaos followed! I'll post about that tomorrow.

mustang humor~Photo Sunday for March 14, 2009

I tell you, our two mustangs have the most FUN! Maybe it is because they are our youngest horses in "the herd", but they always seem to enjoy life! Here they are, yesterday, out for a morning in the arena, kicking up their heels! Photo Sunday for March 14, 2009.

Val's horses

I stopped by my cousin's desert place yesterday afternoon to visit her and the kittens. Her beautiful cat had kittens and I'm taking one of the little females! YEAH! I haven't had a kitten for over .... 12 years! The cats we have now were all grown when we adopted them, so it's been a while since we've had a little bundle of fur running around the house! Anyway, I forgot that I took some pics of her horses on my 4 day weekend in February. It was cloudy that weekend, but it's been sunny here lately! All of her horses are Tennessee Walkers and she takes them with her when she works on a nearby trail! That's how she spends her afternoons, moving rocks and cutting back trees! I wish I had half of her energy! All of her horses are very friendly, as you can tell by the photos!

almond blossoms and blue sky~~SkyWatch Friday, March 13, 2009

The almond trees are blooming at the ranch where we have our horses and last weekend, while hubby was out opening the gate, I wandered over to them to take a couple of photos. The bees were busy in the trees and I had to dodge a couple of them, but it was well worth it, don't you think? SkyWatch Friday for Friday, March 13, 2009.