Trek With BLM horse

I received a tweet about a woman walking across America with her BLM horse. I will follow this journey with interest.
She calls her horse a Mustang, but just because a horse is feral doesn't mean it is a Mustang. Many of the BLM horses are mixtures of various breeds turned out or escaped over the years. In Nevada there are even some horses with Lipizzan blood in them because, many years ago, a Lipizzan stallion escaped and spent quite a while out there with the wild ones.
Back in the days when the US goverment bought huge numbers of horses Thoroughbred stallions were turned loose to "impove" the stock. Draft horses were turned loose during and after the deperession and added their blood to the mix.
Mustangs, as in desendents of the horses that came over with the Conquistedors, are not all that common.


http://www.walkingwithwinnie.com/why.html

Home Again

Once we knew Chels was fine we started back. We stopped to see the grandchildren. Our daughter-in-law took us through the school showing us all the wonderful exhibts that were ready for the school's open house on Thursday.

The art work and science projects are absolutely amazing. There is such an amazing aray of talent among those children. I do have to brag that Brent and Brooke had some wonderful art work on display.

We went to lunch afterwards and then headed on home. Animals were well cared for thanks to our friend Betty.

Another friend, Mary Ann, helped us on the way by keeping us posted on the weather which was dicey.

Now, back to the normal, or almost normal. I've turned the horses into the yard and harvested the first spring greens from my garden. Onions, green beans and tomatoes are doing very well and I'm looking forward to their production soon.

The dogs are going nuts because Buddy likes to tease them by grazing just outside their fence. The cats are all stationed at various windows watching the many birds, who now have young just outside those windows. 

Things seem to be back to normal. Or at least as normal as they ever get around here.

Heart Stopping

No matter how old or accomplished kids are they have the ability to stop a parent's heart with one phone call.
Our call came Easter Sunday evening; "I just vomited up a lot of blood, Mom. Please come."
While asking questions and making suggestions; "Don't try to drive yourself to the hospital. Get a friend too." and How long has this been going on?" "HOW LONG?" we rushed around throwing clothes into the suitcase and throwning food at the animals.
After getting off the phone with dear daughter, there were frantic calls to friends to please come take care of the animals. We set a personal record by being on the road in less than an hour from the first ring of that call.
All during the looooonnnnnngggggg six hour drive to Oklahoma City Chels' friends kept us posted as to what was happening. I even gave up my long standing resistence to texting and began using it.
We reached the hospital in the wee hours of the morning to find her in ICU. NOT because she was that badly off we were quickly reasured, but because they didn't have room for her anywhere else. When you consider this hospital spreads out over four good-sized city blocks you know that they must have had a heck of a weekend.
She is now out of hospital and doing well. Our friends rallied magnificently and we will soon be taking a much shorter six hour trip back home.
One of the great blessings of life are those friends who are willing to drop everything in their own busy lives to help when something goes awry in oru lives and I am truly greatful for the blessings of our friends.