Desert Horses

Welcome to my horse blog, Desert Horses. We live in the desert southwest, near Palm Springs, CA, but board our horses up in our local mountains where it is cooler in the summer. I have 4 horses, all rescues. Here is the ranch up the mountains where the horses stay.

Monday, September 1, 2014

The end of summer...

It seems this MAY be our last blast of summer.  It was 114 here Friday, 110 Saturday, and maybe down to 109 today.  After today, the temps will fall a degree or two.  I'm hoping that this weekend's blast of heat was the LAST of the summer, which really wasn't that bad.  We didn't have any days at 120 (that I recall), and only a few at 118.  So, it was a relatively MILD summer here.

I went for a walk at the city park this morning and was surprised to see so many people out and about.  A lot of them were out walking their dogs.  One gal was feeding the turtles.  Somebody else was collecting the recycle cans and bottles.  It was good to get out and do a 45 minute walk!  I may TRY to squeeze in a morning walk now that my school starts 20 minutes later this year.

Not much going on here today.  I visited the horses yesterday, AND, for the first time that I can remember, I got all 5 of them out for some exercise!  I haven't been able to do that in over... 2 years?  3 YEARS?  Last year I had bronchial asthma...the year before, I had bronchitis pretty much the entire school year, so maybe 3 years?  I did take Friday off from school as I had some kind of virus that led me to have dizziness, a headache, and body aches.  Fortunately, it only lasted 24 hours (hubby had it, too).  We think we got it from our daughter and granddaughter (oh, joy!)  But, by Saturday, I had bounced back (fortunately).

All the horses, including Quad, seem to be doing well.  He and Sunni are now on Bermuda/alfalfa pellets.  GOOD.  I'm glad they won't be scarfing up alfalfa from the ground, even though both of them have rubber mats.  Frankly, I wish all of them would be fed pellets.  I just can't see the need for them to have alfalfa.  Every time I visit, they get a snack of Bermuda and Timothy pellets, along with Integrity Senior (which has probiotics, yeast, and beet pulp).  It is the most expensive pellet mixture, at $22.00 a bag.  Bermuda/alfalfa pellets are at the local feed store for $11.00 a bag, but the ranch owner bought me 8 bags at $8.00 each from her supplier.  That will help cut down my board bill.  The Timothy pellets are, I believe, about $18.00 a bag.

I'm pleased that each horse got some grooming time, some SWAT (the flies are HORRIBLE right now), and some R&R.  I hope I can keep up my energy level.

Here are some pics from yesterday:
 Quad in the arena.  I spotted him running a few minutes later, but I didn't have my camera on me at the time.  He IS feeling better!
 Lucille ~ I took her up to the round pen.
Sunni has always been good at self-exercising!

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