I have not posted in a couple days, not because I have had nothing to say but because I have been too busy to say it. First, who is Esther?

Well, yesterday leaving the nursing home after visiting mom, fixing up her new bed frame and headboard, we passed some apartments. We had gotten the much anticipated cold front and rain early Sunday morning. Lauren exclaimed as we passed the apartment parking lot that a dog and a little kitten were huddling on the pavement. I told her to go back.

So, she turned the truck around and parked. I went after the kitten. A terrier mix dog evidently nursing some pups somewhere was keeping an eye on the tiny kitten. I asked a teen texting on the stairs if she knew if the animals belonged to anyone. She thought the dog lived across the street but thought the kitten was a stray.

I went into the Cindy rescues animal mode. I talked softly to the kitten who was wet and shivering. The kitten ran under a parked car. I eased my way around the car waiting for someone in the apartments above to yell at me to get away from their car. Lauren rolled the windows up on the truck and ignored me.

I got down on the wet concrete and attempted to snatch up the kitten. The kitten moved further under the car. I moved to the other side. I tried the talk softly thing again. The momma dog came to me. The kitten meowed at me from behind the tire. I crawled around on my hands and knees, still waiting for someone to accuse me of trying to steal their rims. Kitten ran to another tire.

I stood up and shrugged my shoulders at Lauren (still in truck nice and dry). The kitten came back out in the sun, standing near me, meowing loudly. I went for the snatch again. The kitten was faster and under the car. Again! We played this game for awhile. I crawled around some more. I watched for squad cars. I listened for a gun being cocked.

I tried to reach through the fancy rims. I failed. Kitten changed tire position again. I got up and shrugged at Lauren. She ignored me.

Okay, so you get the idea. Old lady is crawling around parked cars in now wet clothes followed anxiously by a little terrier while seemingly talking to myself. Very odd. Finally, I decided to make a deal with God. “If you want me to take care of this kitten, you let me catch her!” I reached from behind the tire (I know, super tricky!) and grabbed the little cat.

Thankfully she came did not claw my eyes out. In fact, she settled into my favorite sweatshirt and proceeded to poop and purr. Good times. Lauren threatened my life for smelling up the truck with the delicious sensation of wet, poopy cat.

After a warm bath in the sink, a blow dry and some ointment it was determined the kitten is a boy, who Lauren still insisted on calling Esther. Today the vet said Esther is fine except for multiple strains of worms and ear mites. He will be just fine. Welcome baby Esther! We needed another animal.

The bright light of dawn silhouetting Bruno this morning.

The weather from May to October in south Texas is often an indistinguishable blur of humid, hot days.  Another dawned today with highs expected near 90 degrees, again.

I find myself surprised when I see the calendar or write October on a check, that it is indeed fall.  Seems like the extension of summer that just goes on and on.

But fall brings changes and Lauren and I are preparing for them.  Pixie is due home from the trainer soon and will make six horses in the barn.  It is unclear right now if we will sell her or keep working and training her.  I asked Lauren to do an inventory of horse blankets.  I know I replaced Mickey and Kid’s last year but I am not sure if I have the right sizes for the two ponies, Pixie and Snow, when the weather changes.

Bruno got a new turn-out sheet in the mail yesterday.  It is over seven feet long from one end to another and sports a fashionable, yet masculine print.  We tried it on him last night and I had trouble reaching to get it up over his high, broad back.  Boy scouts could camp under this huge sheet.  As a thoroughbred, Bruno does not grow as heavy of winter coat as Snowboy or Mickey.  The turnout sheet will be waterproof and windproof as the weather starts to look more Chicago-like than Miami.

While Saturday is still in the 90’s, the low on Sunday will be 51!  I am going to have some crazy horses.  The first cold snap of the year always is exciting and stimulating-typically the barometer drops as well.  I plan to stay away from Bruno and not get caught up in any running hooves.

It may be a great time to try to update my blog cover photo which still shows a very dappled Feather, and long gone Leo and Sabrina.  I have no doubt running horses will be sprinting across the pasture.

Fall will bring us back to the “A” show ring with Feather.  Her first attempt at the rated show ring found her sick and returned home within the hours of the show start.  This time Lauren and Feather will show in the jumper ring.  I have no doubt they will continue to progress and pick up some ribbons for their efforts.

Our new roof over the barn, instituted to keep the summer sun at bay, will be an asset as the fall rains begin.  At least we will have some dry ground to care for the horses on.  And Kona can play ball along the 75 foot covered space, not that he cares much one way or the other about getting wet or cold!

I rode Feather and Lauren worked Bruno the other night.  Bruno usually spends at least the first ten minutes acting a little stupid.  Then some true work can begin.  The Bruno I watched go in the arena in the early dusk, was fabulous.  I have never seen him work so well under-saddle or be so balanced.  We have kept up the two caveletti jumps down the center of the arena.  Bruno has accepted jumping them from a walk, trot or canter as asked.  He was moving down the line fluidly.  His trot and canter brought to mind that of a schooled dressage horse.  I don’t know where old Bruno went, but sure am enjoying the sight of this mature, quiet horse that has shown up in his place.

I enjoyed my ride on Feather as well.  As always, thanks for riding along!

The rains returned to south Texas on Thursday. I had a rough week coming back from the old fashioned throw-up and die stomach flu. I was back at work Wednesday but so weak I could not make my usual walks. We were due to cut hay on Thursday. I was surprised at the farmer’s timing with the rain headed in but figured he knew more about the weather than I. What I did know was I was hardly keeping one foot in front of the other and the thought of stacking hay from the field to the barn was more than I could bear.

Lauren was keeping track of the progress of the hay as I made my way home, running directly into the line of storms. Lauren reported the hay bales were finally hitting the ground. Our friend Gaylyn was coming to get her hay and help us. Then Lauren reported they had stopped baling. Apparently the baler was broken. The rain was coming.

We had worked to empty our old garage and our barn hay room so we could hoard hay for the winter. We had planned to put up over 100 bales. As I got home, I called the hayman for an update. He confirmed the baler was broken and now he would be baling round bales (lower quality hay wound into a huge ball like yarn). The round bales (especially after sitting in the rain soaked field) would not be horse quality, nor would we be able to store and manage the giant bales in any case. There would be no hay for us this winter from these fields. I have several friends that have come to depend on this hay. It was a huge blow to see the hay go unbaled in the driving rain.

As the rain descended into Friday, we had not a single bale of hay in the barn, as we had been counting on the fresh hay. Lauren scrambled to go pick up a few bales of hay before the route to the barn became too waterlogged.

Snowboy left on his own in enclosed section of the barn.

I got home Friday after visiting my mom, to see Snowboy standing in the front covered portion of the barn. Lauren was at Blake’s helping him celebrate his birthday. Kid goes out in this area every night. Lauren figured Snow would just clean up the dropped hay and get some time out of his stall.

Lula finding any remaining traces of cat food

Check out the scene I saw as I got to the barn. Note the round, turned over table, the chairs setting on edge, the bags of shavings ripped open and the empty plastic bin. That bin had been full of cat food. Now Snow was full of cat food! What a mess! Boy, he had cleaned up alright. Every edible morsel of food was gone. It looked like Hurricane Snow had come through the barn.

Note to self-Mr. Kid is the only horse allowed in the space in front of the stalls.

I am pleased that our roof we added last spring, which has not seen a strong storm, really helped keep our stalls and horses dry. Also, those additional loads of rock, gravel and sand kept the pasture pathways high and dry so the horses were back out of their stalls this morning.

There is always more we can do, but the little ranch came through the rain in better shape than ever before. Step by step, we make our way.

Thanks for riding along!

I have worked very hard to keep my home life separated from my work life. Only a handful of people from work know about my blog (my alter-ego) or all the animals at my farm. One thing I had been worried about was people thinking I was a good receptacle for their unwanted pets.

Those of you that read regularly know I have a variety of cats that live at the farm. I love cats but my old Dobermans did not and we did not have cats when we first moved here over six years ago. But wild, feral cats found us. I have neutered what I can catch. I have lost many to the highway, the wild dogs, coyotes and other dangers. My population was down to about seven cats this summer.

Enter my office mate with a cat problem. She told me she had a mother kitty and two kittens in her backyard and that her dogs, a Shih Tzu and an Aussie were afraid of them. I didn’t really believe her. I just thought she wanted to dump them and did not want to have to go to the shelter. I made her promise to pay half of the neutering cost and we agreed I would take them on Fourth of July weekend.

Of course it was hot. She was off work for the holiday. She told me she had captured the momma and babies at feeding time and would bring them to me in a crate when I was ready to leave for the day.

First thing I noticed when I saw the cats was that the two kittens were calicoes, which meant they were females. And they were at least three months old (I had been imagining little kittens). Momma was all white with a little tiger coloring on her ear and tail. No one was happy.

My plan was to put them in my tack room and hope for the best. I figured my boss cat, Alice, would run them out, but they would have the barn and under the tack room for safety. There is always food and water at the barn and on the front porch of the house. Alice is one of my oldest cats, neutered early, she stays around the barn with her male cousins JP and Matt (the cat).

I let the momma out, named her Meg, and proceeded to get to know her. She was very sweet to me, allowing me to pet her and hold her. The kittens were not touchable. I was surprised the next morning to go out to feed and find Meg and the kids waiting for me in the tack-room. Alice and friends were circling the barn, waiting for food. I thought that was interesting. I wouldn’t have thought Alice would go along with that but who knows?

That night, I learned why Alice was not in the tack-room. If she or any of the cats, approached the doorway, Meg turned into a hissing, yowling, scratching fool, especially for a petite white cat. And I quickly learned her control over the tack-room ownership extended past just the neutered cats. The cat I hate, big, ol tom cat, Harry Potter, sauntered up to the tack-room to get some breakfast and Meg went all Ninja on him. I haven’t seen him back for a meal since, choosing instead to dine on the front porch of the house.

Likewise, the poodle got a lesson in cat dynamics when he bounded up into the cat corner. I believe his nose was a little bloody upon retreat. In fact, little Meg has now owned the tack-room for almost a month. The only outsider she allows in is Lula, the Dachshund. Perhaps Meg doesn’t even count her as a dog. I do not know.

When I realized this tiny ball of fur really was serious about her control over the tack-room was when my old horse Kid, moseying around the paddock, stuck his big head into watch Lauren make feed as he has done a thousand times over the last several years. He casually pushed his nose in the door and Meg launched on his face like a heat sensing missile. Poor Kid spun around on his 31 year-old legs and has not come back to the tack room since.

I definitely owe my co-worker an apology. This cat is afraid of no predator. I can see why her dogs were afraid. I have come to love the Sputnik myself. Just let her know you are coming before you enter Mission Control-Cat style.

Summer, which officially arrived on June 21st, has really been blasting its rays on us the last week.  It has been a hot, humid week with nothing but 100 degree temperatures on the horizon for the Fourth of July holiday.  We have been blessed to have had a pretty mild spring.  Normal temps for south Texas in late spring usually include many over 90 degrees days, and I guess they did this year as well but a couple of factors made it feel cooler for me.

1)   There was a more even distribution of rain and sun.  In the six summers since we have lived in Wharton, we have had the worst rain, the worst drought, hurricanes and brutal heat waves.  This year is my best year yet for growing my plants.  I think it was all in the balance of water and temperature.

2)  We spent ten days in Maui.  The average night-time temp is about 65 degrees.  The high is 80.  That made me forget the blow torch heat of Texas.  I walk out to feed horses at 4:00 am and it is still 80 degrees.  In the coolest part of the day (just before dawn) it is already to the Maui high temperature.  Oh, wait, I have not mentioned the humidity.  Somehow, a tropical island has less humidity than south Texas.  I wouldn’t have believed it but it is true.

So, both of those factors, a cooler year thus far, and a get the hell out of Texas for Maui trip stifled my ability to absorb and deal with the summer heat.

Our little farm is affected in all kinds of ways.  There are simple things like the water troughs  need to be filled more often, both because more water is being siphoned off by the horses but more is evaporating as well.  Then there is Bruno.  Always looking for something to do to entertain himself on these slow summer days, he has taken to inserting his giant head in hard rubber trough and banging it back and forth until the water spills out or the whole trough turns over.  Not content to just make that muddy mess, he has now started taking enormous bites out of the rubber trough.  I don’t really see any of the rubber lying around the trough, so I must assume he has swallowed it.  Yes, a new metal trough is on order at the feedstore!

The dogs have a big bucket in the back yard we fill each day in the summer.  By mid-afternoon, nothing but bathtub warm water remains in the bucket.  We lost our giant tree in the storms of last year so shade is at a premium in the yard.  I have found one little corner of the porch that stays in the shade through the late afternoon.  I have placed the dog bucket there.  Still, each afternoon requires a gallon or so of icy water dumped into the bucket to make it drinkable.

All the animalls have slowed down, except maybe Bruno, who does not seem to be daunted by the heat.  Even young Kona is satisfied to chase his ball shorter distances and stay under the shade of the barn.

Lauren has lessons with Dev this weekend and offered to be there by 6:00 am to start the lesson.  Dev countered with 9:00 am so that won’t really make a difference.  We will be well into the temperature climb by  then.

Guess the summer has fully launched in Texas.  My memories of cool breezes and gentle waves on the shores are getting more distant.  It is going to be one hot Foruth of July.