Hugs

As promised, here is another random photo of a shelter dog looking for a little love and affection. We spent about 15 minutes with this dog just to take photos and post them on the petfinder website. Moral of this post is:
When looking for your next companion animal, consider adopting, don't just go shopping!

Another New Neighbor

Exciting news, especially for our neighbor's Mustang mare. As you can see in the photos, we now have a very recent addition to the neighborhood. This is the mare's second attempt at having a mule foal. She sadly lost the one last year. But so far, so good, with this little guy. For the first 24 hours he had to be separated from the mare. No one was very happy about that. The mare had to be milked, and the foal had to be bottle fed, but the good thing was that there was a lot of imprinting going on in the process. This all made for a very friendly and fearless little john mule.

We are all keeping our fingers and hooves crossed that this year's mule baby stays healthy.

PS...I forgot to tell you that it was born on my mule Polly's 24th birhtday..it's a good day to be born!

Colorado State Flower

Here's a Wordless Wednesday flower that cropped up near the downstairs doorway. I couldn't resist taking its photo.

Columbine......

Dog Day Morning

Maggie patiently waiting....

Okay, Let's go Mom.....

What's taking so long......

Finally, on the road again!
But I wish that I didn't have to wear this silly jacket.

For Wordless Wednesday....

Machu Pichu, Peru

Shelter Animals

I'm going to spend a little time today talking about one topic that is very close to my heart. The topic; animal shelters, and the sad fact that there are an overwhelming number of unwanted and abandoned dogs and cats in them. When we lived in Arizona (2000-2006) my husband and I spent one day each week volunteering at our local shelter. We would photograph every adoptable dog that came through the doors and put them on the petfinder.com web site with the hope that some of them would find homes. A few did, for that we were grateful, and that's what kept us going. But sadly, most of them had to be put down when the shelter ran out of space. It's been over 3 years now and I have not had the heart to delete any of the thousands of photos that I took. I'm going to post a few random shots of some of these dogs.

I don't know if they were the lucky ones or not, but they all just wanted someone to care about them. They wanted to be loved like we all love our own family dog/s.

Okay here's where I get on the "bandwagon", and I’m sorry if you've heard this too many times before. I wish that there were stricter laws governing the breeding of dogs and cats in this country. I think that people who do not spay or neuter their family dogs should be fined. I think that it should be made mandatory to obtain a special breeding license for each litter. We all need to take more responsibility for the overwhelming number of animals that are literally disposed of every day in this country.

To know a shelter animal is to love one, but we can’t save them all.

All in a Days work

This morning I took a short hike with Maggie.

Maggie is our Border Collie. She has been our top-notch trail dog, horse getter, and just all around good friend. Like all old dogs, she is starting to show her age. I try to judge just how much to expect of her, and not overdo our daily walks. This time of year there's a lot to see......miniature horses, prairie dogs, cows, and birds just to name a few.

The old dog loves to sniff "everything". I'm not sure if it's really necessary or if she is using all the sniffs just to take little rest breaks. It's OK with me, as long as she still wants to get that leash on and go, I'll let her pick the pace.

Here's some of what she sniffed this morning.

Looking through the Ears of a Mule

For those of you who have never had the pleasure of a long trail ride from the back of a mule let me enlighten you. Here are a few photos, taken over a period of many years, from the back of my mule Polly. As you can see, the ears provide a good direction finder (the ears watch everything). We never got lost in all the miles we traveled together. You simply point those mule ears and go!

The first two photos were taken in Northern Arizona in 2004.












This last photo was taken in 1996 on the coast in Oregon. It was our first encounter with the Pacific Ocean. It would have been nice to have had a seat belt that day, but we eventually got our feet wet....mission accomplished.

Trail Class, Green Mule

Polly (Photo #1)

This photo was taken in the early 1990's of me and my very young mule Polly. I will post random photos of her from time to time because she is my constant reminder that if you aways expect the worst, you will usually be pleasantly surprised.

I have had the pleasure of knowing and caring for Polly now for over 20 years. It took awhile, but I would have to say that we are pretty good friends. She is not nor will she ever be, the most trusting mule, but once she decides that you are OK, then you are probably worthy of her affections. She's a pretty good judge of character. We can learn so much by paying attention to the traits of others, even if they are suppose to be the ones learning from us.

New Neighbor

Our seven acres sits just in front of a much larger cow pasture. I guess I'd have to say that our neighbors are mostly Black Angus cows. Each of the cows now has a spring calf by it's side. It's a very active, never a dull moment, view out our kitchen window. Yesterday I noticed that someone new had cropped up amoungst the little black calves. It was struggling desperately to stand by it's mother. But it's mother just happened to be a black horse, not a black cow. Today, just slightly over 24 hours later, it is galloping beside it's mother with the other horses and swerving all the cows. It's going to be one tough little black cutting horse. I sometimes wonder how it knows that it is a horse and not a cow?

It's now one day later. The foal is now two days old. I tried to go take a photo and introduce myself, but the mare wouldn't allow me to get close. These photos don't do justice to how spunky and suspicious everybody was with me and my camera trying to sneak up on them. I did run into a very curious cow (a very photogenic cow I might add).

Anyway, long story short, mother took her new baby out of harms way, and kept a good distance from the predator neighbor. So, even though I didn't get to meet the new baby, I did manage make friends with a few very neighborly cows.

Off to feed the fox...

A few years back I was able to volunteer for a local wildlife rescue here in Mancos. During that time I became totally fascinated with the Red Foxes in this area. We are fortunate to have a pair of these animals that use part of our property for their daily hunting. My dog Maggie and I have been taking scraps to them during the harsh Colorado winter months. Now it's just plain fun to watch them out there prowling for their own game (they are also feeding 3 little kits). As a result of our past contributions, we are somewhat trusted by these clever little animals. A few days ago we walked within 1o feet of the mother fox as she lay waiting for a gopher to emerge from its hole. They are beautiful creatures, and are very entertaining to watch.

They found it....Eureka!

The feeders are full and the Hummingbirds have already found them. they look a bit wet and bedraggled, but are happy to have found some sugary nourishment. Yes, spring is literally in the air.

First spring rain

Day one of our spring seasonal rains, our first annual hummingbird stopped by this morning, looked in the kitchen window, and told me to fill the feeders, “we are back”. I guess spring has arrived here in the Mancos Valley in Colorado! The sun is trying very hard to push out through the thunderheads. It’s such a beautiful day. These are the really simple things that we often overlook, not notice or appreciate. Don’t forget to take a moment each day to look, listen, and enjoy what you have around you, no matter what it is, or how insignificant it might be, breathE it in, take it in, make sure that you really see it.