Going home again

You will all be relieved to know that I get to go home on Wednesday (tomorrow!!!). There is no one in the entire world who will be more relieved than Christie, however. If you've been keeping up on her Daily Ranch blog then you know she has not had it easy. When I get home, I will take the rest of the week off so I can help her get back on her feet. My trip home also coincides with the start of the summer guesting season. Our good friends Karen & Aud are coming out for an unprecedented 20 days, and their son Alex will be with them for at least a week of that. They are really great about pitching in where ever help is needed, so my hope is that Christie can recover pretty easily.

The big news for me is that the next week, I have the opportunity to work from home. My boss agreed to a trial week offsite to see how it goes. So, even though I have to work, I will still be home for a week and a half, which will be the most I've seen Christie since heading off to Chicago in March. I'm so excited I can barely concentrate at work. I'm doing my best though!

Chapter n+1: A New Adventure

Given the "downturn" or "slowdown" or whatever you want to call it, Christie and I have been increasingly leery of returning to Bank of America. The question quickly became, if not BoA, where? We figured I'd have to move at least temporarily in order to find work. Well, if I'm going to move, it should be somewhere I'm already comfortable, so that means Chicago.

I have a ton of contacts in Chicago, and notification of my intent to relocate brought lots of interesting possibilities. The most interesting was at Sky Road LLC, a software company catering to small to medium sized trading firms and hedge funds. Their business model is to wrap up existing software and vend it as an ASP (Application Service Provider) which means their customers don't have to have a large IT department, like BoA or Citadel. The best thing about Sky Road is that I already knew 5 of the 20 employees, so I felt confident I would fit in. Also, with my 10+ years working on financial software they felt confident in my abilities.

Now it is the beginning of my third week at Sky Road. I am staying in an extended stay-type hotel and getting to and from work using their shuttle. I have been looking for apartments and found a nice place 1.3 miles away from the office. My next big thing will be buying a car. I figure we can get a halfway decent car for a few thousand dollars. My commute is short, and beyond work, I just need to get groceries and maybe go to a movie now and then.

At work, I definitely jumped right into the deep end, but was pleased to discover I am a good swimmer. My experience working for banks and hedge funds has already paid dividends because I understand what is being asked of me and can accurately discourse on many topics. My first task is a big one, slated to take 6-8 weeks. I understand how to do this sort of thing, but the challenge before me is to figure out how Sky Road does this sort of thing so that I don't have to throw away my first effort, or heaven forbid, reinvent the wheel.

Christie is holding up pretty well at the ranch. We've got people helping with the feeding right now so she doesn't have to do too much on a given day. It is my hope she can use some of this time to recuperate from the long and difficult winter. Spring is around the corner and with it comes foaling season. Christie has a long list of guests slated to visit this summer, so she will rarely have to handle the ranch all alone.

We've been apart like this before, but during the year I lived in Chicago before working remotely from the ranch, I was able to travel home every other weekend. This time around money is a little tighter so we are jumping into this new adventure not knowing how it will work. One thing I do know, even with so many miles between us, we will figure it out together, and that makes all the difference.

I'm still standing

Hello dear readers. I haven't been ignoring you (much) I have just been kinda busy being unemployed. They say that looking for work is a full time job. Well, "they" don't know the half of it. By the time you sleep until 10am, eat breakfast, and check your e-mail, it is time for lunch. And, if lunch is at all strenuous, an afternoon nap ensues. It is a good day when I can send out one or two job applications, and I think you know not every day is a good day.

OK, I'll let you off the hook, I'm not really just a shiftless layabout, I'm much, much more. In addition to being a shiftless layabout, I'm also a full time ranch hand right now. If you ask me, and I think you did, or you wouldn't be reading my blog, it could not have come at a better time. Christie didn't get her usual boost in heath this summer, so going into the winter, her tank was running low. When I got laid off, she could barely manage one of the two daily feedings by herself, and none of the other things, like pumping water into tanks or putting out supplements. While I have been doing my fair share of laying-about, I have also been able to take over most of the day-to-day ranch chores.

This week we replaced "most" with "all" as Christie went to Iowa to help out her cousin. I'm doing all the feeding, watering, and supplementing by myself right now. Luckily, all of the new fencing is holding up quite well, so breakouts have been a minimum. There's a weak spot between the Boys and Mamas herds, and some of the more adventurous horses, like Sahara and Ghost are doing some mingling. I'll probably have to trudge out there at some point and make a temporary repair, but it isn't too urgent right now.

On the job front, a couple of interesting possibilities exist, but I don't want to count chickens before they hatch or anything. (Actually, I've never been a fan of counting chickens so I may have a bias.) Anyway, I'll be sure to let you all know if anything "hatches".

Let there be heat

Yesterday our wood stove conked out. It filled the house with smoke instead of sending it up the chimney. Smoke was even oozing (can smoke ooze?) out of every little crack and crevice in the stove. It wasn't heating, and we were quickly reduced to opening doors and windows to vent the place. Did I mention it got down to negative 30 degrees up here last night? Ole' Murphy was prosecuting us to the full extent of his law, I can tell you that.

We got a roaring fire going in the fireplace, which helped. Our fireplace has a blower built in so that once the firebox gets heated, warm air can be circulated. It was really nice within about 5' of the fireplace, and the rest of the house stayed just above 50 degrees. We figured it was also a great time to run the self clean cycle on our oven (500 degrees for three hours or so).

Once we had a little heat in the place we tried to tackle the stove. It just started smoking really bad, do we have a green log in there? We took all the burning wood out of it and threw it in the snow outside. Nope, smoke still coming into the house. There's a lot of ash in there, maybe it would breathe better if we cleaned it out. I dug a trench in a snow bank and took 8 big buckets-full of ash out. Nope, still too smoky. Ah, there is a door for removing the ash that falls down the chimney. Took another bucket of ash from there. Nope, still smoky. Well, let's sleep on it, thank goodness for down comforters.

At 5AM this morning, we were awake and decided to try using the shop vac to clean out the horizontal portion of the chimney that goes out the back of the stove. (To do this, I had to get the generator to start in -30 degrees and then find the shop vac out in the garage. Brrrr!!!!) There was about an inch of ash there, but removing it didn't fix anything. However, while shining a light around in there, I saw that there was no opening in the back for the smoke to go up. I got a pole and tested this and confirmed that there seemed to be a blockage.

At 8:01AM we started calling chimney sweeps. It must be the off season for them because of the 4 in the phone book, two were out of town. One was too far away and didn't want to drive all the way up here, but the 4th guy was willing. He got here as the sun came out blazing brightly in complete defiance of the temperature. He agreed that there appeared to be a blockage and hopped up onto the roof with his brushes and poles. There was quite a bit of accumulated ash and creosote in the chimney, so it needed cleaning, for sure. However, at a certain point, his brush got stuck. He hit something metal. A glance inside the wood stove revealed he was banging on the horizontal pipe from above. He figured out that the horizontal pipe had somehow gotten pushed back into the chimney too far and had become closed off by the back wall of the chimney. It is a good thing he was a small man, for he was able to climb halfway into our stove and get a vicegrip clamped onto the pipe. He pulled it out a ways and lit a piece of paper. The smoke went up!!!

Now we have a very clean wood stove and chimney and a nice warm fire going. We stole the big coals out of the fireplace to jump-start the wood stove and now it is warming up in here. My nose is still cold, but there is no longer any frost on my window. We were able to settle out of court with Murphy for about $150, which could have been much worse.

Maybe it'll work THIS time...

When will I ever learn? I keep doing the same thing expecting a different result. I'm going to state a bit of wisdom that you can all feel free to quote back to me until I learn my lesson. Here it is:

If you think you might need tire chains, then you do need tire chains.

Wow, when I say it like that it makes so much sense. Of course, if someone had said that to me yesterday, I would probably have dismissed it as hogwash.

Yesterday Christie had to take Cordova (Cory) to town to meet a transport truck. Cory is going to live with some very nice people in Colorado Springs. He was a champ, he even waded through a snow drift to squeeze into the trailer because I backed it into a corner. Trust me, for a half-Arab yearling, that is downright amazing.

I'm sure some of you are wondering why the trailer was parked awkwardly. I'll tell you outright it was because I was too tired to care. But I get ahead of myself. Let's backtrack 4 hours to the time when Christie sweetly asked, "Honey, could you help me hook up the trailer?" I left my desk, knowing I would be right back to work with none the wiser.

We hooked up the trailer as snow fell softly, giving the world a fuzzy aspect. We decided, smartly I thought, to pull the trailer up to the top of the driveway before adding the weight of a horse. I took a run at it, and almost made it too. The truck made it past the steep part, but the trailer didn't and I started to spin. OK, no problem, I'll just back up and a take another run at it, with a little more speed I won't get stuck. Evidently I left my mental capacity in my other briefs, because I managed to back the trailer straight down the driveway, and into our yard. The driveway turned, I didn't, the rest is history.

About this time, I realized it would have been good to have tire chains. So, we decided to put them on. This was a terrible time to try to locate the chains we hadn't used since last winter. Well, we couldn't find them in our garage, but we did find the chains for the Dodge (our ranch truck). These were a little too big for the Chevy, but we decided that with enough bungee cords anything will fit. With some digging, we got the chains around the tires, latched and tightened them. I got back in the truck and pulled the trailer about 6". While I didn't manage to get the trailer back up onto the driveway, I did dig a pair of impressive holes with the back tires.

The chains were slipping and starting to come off the tires, one link snapped under the stress. Since it was clear the Dodge's chains weren't going to work for the Chevy, we decided to use the Dodge. We unhooked the trailer from the Chevy, drove it out of the holes it dug, and took off the chains. Then we repaired the broken link and installed the chains on the Dodge. This was all around much easier, since the chains were meant to fit these tires and it didn't hurt that the Dodge was parked on a nice flat, level section of our plowed driveway.

With chains properly attached, I backed up the Dodge to the trailer and hitched it up. Chains aren't a cure all for bad traction, but they help a lot. After several times moving the trailer a few feet, I managed to get turned back onto the driveway. By then, the trailer and I were pointing downhill instead of up, but that could be remedied. I went down by the barn and turned around. Then, with a mighty roar, the Dodge, the trailer, and I went tearing up the driveway ... literally. Snow was flying everywhere, from the sky and from the tires. When I got to the steep part I didn't hesitate and we made it up onto the road. (I parked the truck and trailer in our turnout, and that is when I backed the trailer into a snow drift.)

Wow, I thought, that was much easier with chains.

If you think you might need tire chains, then you do need tire chains.

The year is dead, long live the year

New Year's has never really had much meaning for me. It was simply another holiday from work. This year, however, I see the new year in a whole new light. As 2007 was very rough on Christie and I, I see 2008 as an opportunity. This year will be a year of healing for us, a time to get back on our feet and recover from all the shocks of 2007.

What is more, I have the strong feeling that 2008 is going to be a great year for us. For the first time in years we are entering the new year free of debt. Well, there's still the mortgage and the car payment, but everyone has those. I'm talking about unsecured debt, like medical bills and credit cards. For the first time in a long time, none of that is hanging over our heads, and I blessed that we are so fortunate. It was worth the hardship.


In my last post, the glass was definitely half empty. I'm not so manic as to declare it is now half full, let us just say there is water in the glass. It is what it is. Could we have more personal and family emergencies in 2008? Of course. Are we in a better place to handle them when they arise? I think we are.

I wish everyone a safe and gentle 2008.

I want my money back

I may be showing my age, but how many of you have heard Meatloaf's Life is a Lemon and I Want My Money Back? Well, that is how I've been feeling lately about 2007. I sat down to write a this blog post and while thinking about what to write, I found myself humming the song, so this is what you get.

In general I'm not a whiner. I can take my lumps and keep on going, perhaps even better than some. However, this was an incredibly difficult year at the ranch, for a lot of reasons. I won't bore you with every little thing, but a few of the highlights are:

• I got laid off work with only 9 days notice (two months later, got my job back)
  
• Christie fractured a vertebra while riding
  
• An unexpected death in Christie's family
• The Black Cat fire and midnight evacuation of 30 horses
• Wind storms that destroyed our fences in almost every pasture
• I had to manage the ranch alone while Christie was out of town for several weeks helping her cousin
• Two bent axles on our horse trailer
  

I could make the list much longer, but then I think I really would be a whiner. My point is that if only a few of these events had happened, I wouldn't be humming "life is a lemon..." This year, though, I feel battered and bruised, and if any of you have any connections at the Customer Service Center of the Universe, I'd like a refund for 2007. Barring that, I would settle for a mulligan or even a do-over.

Now, in order to keep my readership, I'm going to end on a good note. In the past few weeks we found a crew of guys at a local temp agency to help rebuild our fences. They have done amazing work, putting up hundreds of yards of jack-leg. The stallion has not escaped in weeks, and Christie and I actually have time to enjoy each other's company. Some of the stress of the past few months is finally starting to dissipate now that we know our fences will hold up.

The Wind also Blows

Today it is snowing ... on only half of the ranch. The snow is coming down outside my West-facing window, but not outside my North-facing window. If anyone can explain that to me I'd love to hear it. Meanwhile, I'll tell you about yesterday's weather, which wasn't so much strange and frightening.

The wind roared through our little valley yesterday. It wasn't just gusty, it was constant and very strong. From my office window I watched trees bending at unnatural angles. A rabbit hutch, which took three strong guys to move, was casually flipped over on its roof. The same for the goose shelter. Roofing was ripped off the small barn, and tarps were torn from hay stacks. However, the biggest issue, by far, was the downed trees.

I watched with guts twisting as more and more trees fell. Oh, there went a fence in the Upper Little Barn pasture. Ah, another one blocking the driveway. By the time I finished work for the day, 8-10 trees had fallen across our driveway. I had to clear these before I could take food to the Middle 20 and Back 20. Before I could do that, I noticed that there were too many black horses over by the young boys herd.

Ryder and Blackie were in the Goat Barn pasture while we fixed fences knocked down last week. The fences got fixed, but I hadn't gotten around the moving them back yet. Well, the fence that borders the property to the South was almost completely destroyed by several fallen trees, so Ryder and Blackie decided to go exploring. I got them put back in Ryder's pasture (Lower Little Barn) and grabbed my chainsaw.

I lost track of time, but it must have been a little over an hour later, I straightened up, looked around and realized I had cleared enough of the driveway for a vehicle to pass. It was well past dusk, but I could still see to walk around so I quickly got the feeding done. By the time that was done, it was pretty much full dark. I was able to see by the light on our little John Deere lawn tractor (which we use to haul hay around for feeding) that there had been a few trees down along Mill Creek Road, but that other people had cut and cleared them. When I got to the little road that leads to The Cabin, I noted at least 4 large trees that fell from the Middle 20 to the Back 20, taking out fences on both sides of the road. They will have to wait for another day.

The feeding was done, but unfortunately I couldn't go in yet because I didn't have any firewood in the house or on the porch. Luckily I knew just where to go for some fresh fallen timber, some of which was even already dead and dry. I won't complain about my various aches and pains, I'll just say I slept really well last night. Today after work I will try to survey more of the damage while there's daylight.

The Lone Rancher

I don't wear a mask. I don't ride a fiery horse with the speed of light. I avoid clouds of dust. And, I'm never heard saying "Hi-yo Silver," although I do let slip a "Weee doggie" now and then. In spite of all this, I am The Lone Rancher.

Christie is back in Iowa for two weeks helping out her cousin, so I have the ranch to myself. In preparation, we hired some help and got a huge amount of jack-leg fence built. This makes my job a bit easier, which turns out to be a good thing.

Yesterday, I fed the horses morning and evening, managed three escapes, and repaired a gate. I also attempted to work my full shift on my day-job, but managed only about 6.5 hours. It seems horses don't wait until after 4PM to escape from their pastures.

Two of the escapes were from a known section of down fence, but I ran out of daylight (thanks to daylight "savings" time). I'm hoping to repair that section tonight after work. The other escape came when the stallion apparently smashed a gate in our new jack-leg fence. Mares and babies were running everywhere as the stallion attacked some and tried to mount others. That gate is now just another section of fence as my "repair" was to nail up some rails over the gap.

It is a good thing we didn't make life any easier, or I'd just sit around eating bonbons all day.

Cutting down trees for firewood

We finally got all our hay in for the winter, and it is stacked high and tarped down. We should be able to manage feeding through the winter as the piles are conveniently located. That leaves fencing and firewood as our two top jobs. We are building jack-leg fence, so now both of our top priorities require the ability to handle a chainsaw well.

I learned how to handle a chainsaw from my friends and neighbors. They taught me the right and wrong way to drop a tree, and how to do so safely. For those of you who don't have the benefit of Curry, Bob, Jarred, and Pete, and Aud, here's a great set of instructional videos I found online.

http://www.expertvillage.com/interviews/felling-trees.htm

Enjoy.

New, old friends

From earlier posts, you might remember Michal, the girl from Chicago who stayed with us for the summer and helped out around the ranch. Well, her parents, Naomi and Larry are visiting us for the week. This is their first vacation without the kids for a long, long time and they are very excited. We met Naomi when she brought Michal out, but Larry couldn't come that time. It will be good to get to know them, even though we feel like we know them already through their daughter.

They are here to do some horseback riding, hiking, biking, and sightseeing. It seems Larry also has a fondness for power tools and he took the afternoon yesterday to cut and notch a whole bunch more posts for building jack-leg fences. I was dreading that job, and it seems Larry has given me a reprieve.

Christie, Naomi, and Larry are getting ready to go on a ride. Since it is 30 degrees out, I think I'll stay in my nice warm office.

Now this is progress

For those of you worried that we won't get our fencing project finished, fear not. This week, we have erected a total of 10' of jack-leg fence. Actually, we didn't do any fencing, Christie did it all. It was our intention to go out there every evening after work and put up a couple more jacks. Well, you know what the best laid plans oft do...

Tuesday Christie went to town to babysit our nieces while I tore down some old fencing that was in our way. Progress was made, for sure, but no actual fence was built.

Wednesday we discovered that Spirit, Nefertari's baby from this Spring, was limping and had a cut on his left, rear leg above the hock. After bringing him to the barn and getting his leg cleaned up, we realized it was a pretty bad cut near the tendon. So, we loaded him into the trailer and took him to Dr. Brown ... after hours, of course. Dr. Brown got him cleaned up, but it was a pretty serious cut, so Spirit will need to have the wound cleaned and redressed every day for a few weeks. No fence was built.

Thursday, while I worked, Christie went out and worked on the fence. She got one jack-leg set with all the rails perfectly spaced, so now we have a template to work from. Then she was off to town for a lesson with the gaited horse trainer. After the lesson she realized that one of the trailer tires was all shredded and definitely flat. The guys at the stables helped her change the tire, but they noticed that the trailer had a bent axle and that the mounting brackets for the axle were twisted and broken, hence the ruined tire. She got a recommendation for a trailer repair guy and dropped it off. He is going to get back to us with an estimate of the damage. Ten feet of fence built.

Friday, today. Our hay people were able to load up the flatbed trailer during the week, so we need to get back to bringing in hay only 23 ton to go! We're working on a loan from the bank to pay for the hay, but the banker seems to be dragging his heels a bit. If we can finalize the loan today, we will be getting more hay, otherwise, maybe ... perhaps ... there's a chance ... of getting some more fences built.

Better than any gym

This weekend (a long one thanks to Christopher Columbus) we brought in 22.6 ton of hay. We had plenty of help, but it was still a lot of work. Our hay suppliers have an amazing attachment for their tractor which can pick up 12 bales at a time and stack them on a trailer. They were able to do almost all the loading with that machine in very little time (about 11 tons in 1 hour). The hay suppliers loaned us a flatbed gooseneck trailer which I pulled with our 3/4 ton diesel truck. Our helpers also had two trucks, a one-ton pickup and a two-ton flatbed with an additional trailer. With all that capacity, each trip up the mountain brought us 11.3 tons!

I drove two 4.5 ton loads up to the ranch, and helped unload one of them into the Big Barn. The Small Barn by the house is full, we have a nice sized stack in the yard near the friendship circle (aka fire ring), the Goat Barn is full, and the Big Barn is nearly full. Next weekend, our helper is going to bring more loads up, and we will start filling the Hay Barn across from the New Moon pasture.

We had a little excitement when I got the flatbed trailer stuck in the muck down by the Big Barn. We huffed and we puffed but could not budge that trailer. It only weighed about 13,000 lbs, so I'm not clear on why it sank so fast. Our helper was able to unload it into his pickup and shuttle the hay to the Big Barn. After the trailer was unloaded, we got it out of the mud easily.

Over the weekend Christie and I also gathered up jack-legs for the lower Little Barn pasture and laid them out all in a line. These were the heavy duty ones Jarred put together for the stallion pasture, so it took both of us to lift each one. We will begin erecting that fence as time permits this week. Also this week we will have to hit some of the stores in town to see if anyone is giving away palettes, we had to scour the ranch this last weekend in order to have enough for all the hay that came in.

An hour in a minute

Well, one of the things Andy helped me figure out was the webcam thing. We didn't have the exact right hardware, so we made due. The camera is a black&white cam we use to monitor birthing mares, so it isn't the ideal webcam. Even so, the results aren't bad.

This is what the world looked like out my window during my lunch break today. It is a cloudy day today, but the sun does peek through a couple of times. Enjoy!

Evacuation and aftermath

Where to begin? I don't know, and I'm not sure I can do this in chronological order, but I'll try. Just don't hold me to exact dates and times. As the danger has now passed, let me not keep you in suspense. The ranch did not burn down, and all of our animals are safe and healthy, except Rajah, who is doing better. Now let me see if I can fill in the details.

To get the timeline of the fire itself check out the official website: Black Cat Wildfire.

My timeline goes something like this...

• A while back: there's a fire in the area, lots of smoke in the air
• Not as far back: the fire is on our same mountain range, about 5 miles away
• Two weeks ago today: a Sheriff's Deputy is stationed at the bottom of Mill Creek Road, says that if they order an evacuation, we will have 90 minutes to get out.
• Two weeks ago tonight: we decide to get the horses out because 90 minutes would not be enough time. There is a good story here which I intend to write about more fully. The summary is that Christie rounded up a bunch of people and trailers and we got 30 horses (26 of ours and 2 visiting mares with foals at side) off the mountain in the dark.
• The next day: We learn some of the horses tried to make a break for it in the night. I guess they didn't like their temporary home, so we went over there to secure the pastures better. We took a couple of the troublemakers to our Arlee evacuation site to ease the pressure on the fence work.
  
• That evening: Karen & Aud celebrate their anniversary with a steak dinner (cooked on the gas grill, not the fire pit!)
• Later that evening: A sheriff's car drives by shouting on his loudspeaker that we have 30 minutes to evacuate. We pull out of the driveway at 32 minutes (Karen kept the time for us).
  
• Some indeterminate amount of time later: Our caravan of four vehicles, the Silverado with horse trailer attached, the dodge, Aud's Father's minivan, and Janice's car arrives at Katy and Paul's old house. (Katy & Paul are my brother- and sister-in-law.) The house doesn't even have furniture, but it does have electricity, running water, and A/C, which we gratefully crank up.
• The next couple of days: Drop off cats and goats at a shelter for evacuees, located at the fair grounds. The Houdini horses aren't in a very secure pasture, so we decide to move the rest of them to our Arlee evacuation site. Our near-Blue-Mountain-Road evacuation site needs hay so we pick up a ton from our suppliers in Arlee and deliver it. At some point I lose track of how many times we drive up and down highway 93, gawking at the fire each time. We pick up a refrigerator from Bug & Paul to put in their old house. There is a community meeting at the Frenchtown high school.
• Monday, 20-Aug: I use Katy & Paul's basement as a temporary office. Meanwhile, Karen, Aud, & co. are able to make a trip up to the ranch to get some of the important stuff we forgot in our haste. There is another community meeting tonight.
• Tuesday: Something like normalcy. Karen, Aud, & crew check out downtown Missoula while I work. Karen will fly home home on Wednesday so we grilled steaks and I got a cake that said "Thank You!" from Coldstone. Evacuation is lifted as of 10PM, we decide to stay in town for the night.
• Wednesday: I work from Bug & Paul's (do you see a pattern here?). After work, we go up to the ranch. Everything is fine once you get past the first few miles of burned land and the National Guard checkpoint. The ranch is unharmed except that everything is in disarray from our hasty departure.
• Thursday: Sleeping in my own bed instead of on the floor is too good, I oversleep by three hours. After a late start, I get to work. Karen fixed lots of little things in the barn, stall doors, broken mangers, etc. They head out in the evening to sleep in town and get an early start on their driving.
• Friday: All alone at the ranch, I work my day job. Sarah comes over in the evening with a pizza and we watch a movie.
• Saturday: Lots of helicopter activity, I hope that means they are controlling the fire. Rajah is not himself, seems sick. Took his temp, 104.2 which is high. Decided to take him to vet. Since we are still on 1-hour evac notice, I take everything I'll need in case they decide not to let us back in (including Maya). At the vet, his temp is 106, they immediately start trying to cool him down and get him on IV fluids. They figure out he has pneumonia and keep him overnight.
• Sunday: visit Rajah a few times to try to keep his spirits up. Put Christie on speakerphone so she can tell him she loves him and wants him to fight this illness. Stayed at Bug & Paul's old house so I can be close to Rajah.
• Monday: Move Rajah from emergency vet clinic to Four Paws as the emergency clinic only operates on evenings and weekends. Work from Bug & Paul's basement, again. Christie flies home about noon and checks on Rajah. The vet doesn't have the facilities to keep Rajah overnight, so we stay at Bug & Paul's old house again. We learn the 1-hour evac notice is lifted for us!
  
• Tuesday: Take Rajah back to Four Paws for more observation, he seems to be a bit better. I work from Bug & Paul's basement. Vet thinks we can take Rajah home and switch from IV antibiotics to oral. Christie rides up to the ranch and sees the fire damage for the first time.
• Today: Rajah is breathing easier and seems to have a bit more energy. He ate some leftover steak, and is drinking well. I work from HOME, alleluia! Christie went to town to pick up cats and goats from the shelter, and the first load of horses. If we have the energy, we'll go back for another load of horses tonight.
  
• Tomorrow: More of the same, and life continues...
  

Fire on the mountain

There have been fires every year, but this one is pretty close to home.

http://www.inciweb.org/incident/938/

According to GoogleEarth, it is about 5 miles away, down Black Cat Gulch. I don't think we're in much danger, but there is a chance. If this fire were to burn along the crest of the mountain it is on, it would come right to us.

We have started working on our evacuation plan, but it is really hard to know how far to take it. Should we start trucking horses off the mountain, or just load all our keepsakes into the truck? We've had numerous offers of assistance, for which I am very grateful. With our three-horse trailer, it would take something like 8 trips to get all the horses down to the evacuation site in Arlee. Luckily we have lots of good friends with horse trailers, so I think we can get it done much faster.

There isn't much else to report right now, but fear not, we are all well

The calvary has arrived

For those of you who don't know, Christie had a family emergency last week and had to head to Iowa on short notice, Monday. Michal was here until Wednesday, taking care of the animals, so I could concentrate on work. However, after Wednesday, I had the ranch to myself, which also meant all the chores.

Mostly the chores meant feeding a few of the horses and milking the goat. I also setup an irrigation regimen for watering the Big Barn pasture every morning. Add to that all the miscellaneous ranch details, and I ended up short changing my day job to moonlight as a rancher. Well, now I don't have to bring home the bacon AND fry it up in a pan, because the calvary has arrived.

Our friends, Karen & Aud are back, and they brought Alex and his girlfriend Emily along as well. They will be here almost two weeks and will be concentrating on erecting more jack-leg fences to replace all the old, rotting fences we have now. They are also kind enough to take over the daily things, like feeding the horses and milking the goat twice a day.

Not only that, but this ranch gets pretty lonely after all the work is done, so I welcome the company. Last night when they arrived, we quickly dispatched the evening chores and then spent a few minutes enjoying the cool evening breeze around the Friendship Circle. (We can't really call it a fire pit during Stage 2 fire restrictions.) It will be nice to pass the evenings with friends again.

Early to bed, early to rise ... and fall

Hoping to get a good start on the week, I went to bed around 8:30PM last night. I didn't fall asleep right away, but it was good to know I'd wake up refreshed and ready for my Monday morning. That was the theory anyway. At 1:24AM, I woke up to hear beeping, running feet, and slamming doors. It took me at least a full minute to put together that Sky was having her foal.

No worries, I thought, Christie is already out there. Oh wait, Sky wasn't in the barn, so the baby is probably out in the pasture somewhere. Ugh, time to carry another 100+ lb. baby to the barn. When I got out there, the baby, a jet-black colt, was already born and trying to figure out about standing up. Well, there was a lot of squirming, but not much standing.

Christie helped get the little bugger standing so I could get my arms around it. I had just hoisted the baby up into my arms and taken the first step toward the barn when some horse's ass blind-sided me. It was Sky's ass, she evidently took exception to my carrying her baby off. She spun around and did a full-body check on me and baby. Baby went down and I landed on my back a few feet away, with new respect for hockey and football players.

I know my brain was rattled because I momentarily confused Sky's species, calling her a female dog instead of a female horse. Christie got a halter on Sky, and we tried again. Michal helped Little Bit up and I got him up into my arms. Luckily Sky foaled right across the bridge from the barn so there was only about 100 feet to stumble to the barn. I laid Scooper down in the fresh straw and promptly went back to bed. But not without taking some aspirin first.

Sky and her colt are doing fine this morning. The little bugger is very cute, I think he's going to grow up and break all the ladies' hearts.

Crazy Day

Yesterday was a bit much, here's some of what happened:

• Blackie tripped on her lead rope and went down. Stayed down. Had to be coaxed back to her feet. Poor old girl.
• Christie took Michal and Brianne out for a ride. All horses came back with riders this time.
  
• The young horses, including Dancer and Ghost decided the grass was greener in the yard.
• I built up the fire pit (aka Friendship Circle) with more rocks to make a deeper pit. All agree it looks nice.
  
• A neighbor had family in from out of town. They came to see the critters. They stayed to ride the golf cart, the lawn tractor, and anything else with a motor.
• A mare and her foal got tangled in Ryder's electric fence. Everyone is fine. I used enough adrenaline to last a week.
• My sister made kabobs for dinner over the campfire. They were yummy.
  
• Two mares arrived for breeding with foals at side. They don't appear to have been handled much. Christie setup a temporary round pen for them.
  
• All the yearlings got groomed. There is a prospective buyer coming today.
  
• Horses were moved around to make a stall available for Sky to have her baby in. Sky didn't have her baby. We are all waiting to exhale.
• Christie and I made a quick trip to Frenchtown to make a deposit at the bank and get groceries for today.
  
• We filled water tanks for all pastures using the irrigation pump.
• Jarred hauled more wood for fencing down from our hillside.
• Michal worked with Cairo in the round pen.
• A temporary fence was setup by the round pen so horses could be left there without them being able to chew on Janice's car.

...oh yeah, and I worked my normal 7-4 shift for the bank.

Guests, invited and otherwise

My sister, Ruth, arrived yesterday. Her roommate Beth, and Beth's niece, Brianne came with her. They were at the end of a fairly long road trip from Omaha that included seeing Bon Jovi in Wyoming, and spending a day and a half in Yellowstone. Needless to say, they were grateful to fall into bed last night, even if it was just the couch and a blow-up mattress.

Now because I'm so dedicated to my work (i.e. there are bills to pay) I was up at 6:30AM today. As I emerged from the bedroom, I distinctly heard Beth say "Peacock go away!" In any other household it would have been safe to assume Beth was dreaming about some real or imagined childhood trauma. I however, knew immediately that she was wide awake and lucid, because there were indeed two peacocks strutting around the room. It seems they have discovered that our screen door has a peacock-sized hole in it. Furthermore, this is not the first time they have been inside.

It was easy to herd them out of the house, but I'm sure they'll be back. I'm also sure that our invited guests will be wondering what other manner of uninvited guests will be poking their beaks, noses, muzzles, or snouts through that screen. What I'm not sure about is whether Beth really believes she can talk to peacocks. City people sure are strange.