By Patty Wilber
(If you missed the post above this, Saving Benjy, By Doranna, I encourage you to get a tissue and have a read.)
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We have had a decent snow pack and a wet spring, so far!
The runoff on the Rio Grande (do not say Rio Grande River–it’s redundant) and its major tributaries (the Chama and the Pecos rivers) is over 100% of the 30 year running average and is the highest since 2005!
In startling contrast, runoff on the Pecos last year was a whopping ZERO% of average.
The Drought Monitor shows a much damper picture this year as well.
This year.
Last year 4/24/18
We have flowers and horses grazing on grass!!
We have a lot of grass, for us, but if you look closely, you can see we also have mustard weed and our grass is neither thick nor especially tall. If we were to to try to maintain our horses solely on pasture, we would need around 90 acres per horse per year! Yes, 90. (My rough calculation was based on this site, and I think I am low as we have a lot of rock.)
We have about three acres they can access, so for now, while things are moist, we can let them out to graze for a few hours every other day. They love it!
The old Dudes.
Cometa, 22 and Durango (the Appaloosa), 17. They got to this spot and stayed there for two hours. (Durango did do some gallivanting about with Lucy and Stella before settling down to eat.)
Stella
Stella is seven and a “colt” start. She is coming along well. She and Lucy had a fine time running up, down, over, and leaping about until they joined the Old Dudes. When I came out to get them for dinner, all four of them galloped in to the barn with Cometa (the oldest) in the lead, and Lucy, (the youngest) coming last.
LT, Penny and Effie were in the other pasture. My pictures of Penny and Effie were not good.
Lucy, looking like she is in some sort of lighted and fake setting. She is shed out because she has been wearing a blanket. 5/5/19
Horse of a different color! This is her 4/14/19, prior to shedding. And in a parking lot.
Our other 30 acres is not fenced, so it is not good for grazing. Lucy and I went flower hunting on Wednesday, and I took Effie Thursday.
Penstemon, a nose and a foot.
Verbena
Fleabane and Lucy’s ear.
Yucca
Fendler Bush and Lucy’s other ear.
Cactus–doesn’t look so green around this one!
Effie in fleabane
Effie is a seven year old Paso Fino cross here for a tune up. We are having a good time! Well, I am. She is not so sure about all the rock scrambling, cactus dodging, and bushwhacking we have been doing. “gotta another spine in my leg! have to duck under another branch! seriously, maybe we should just stay in the round pen!”
Mary Ann brushing Durango while the dogs supervise. Yes, it was cold. We are having a cold snap! Friday is supposed to be 42 with an 80% chance of rain.
Durango was abandoned. Mary Ann and Roger adopted him from Walk N Circles rescue. He has been here about a year and a half. I get to ride him three times a week. He has muscled up a lot and has turned into a very handsome fellow! He acts reserved and mellow, but there is a lot more going on with him than first appears! He can really cut up when he plays, and even at 17, he does still like to play!
Yay for Spring!
Hahah and now, the day I posted this blog, it is SNOWING!
Question about Stella…what is a “colt start?”
Flowers are lovely. We lost our yuccas sometime back and I’m not entirely sure why; we had what I was calling “grass yuccas” (small, thin leaves) out in the grass in one area, but they started looking sickly (could’ve been the plant-sucking bugs on them? Or were the bugs a symptom of something else?) and disappeared between one year and the next…and then the yuccas (with different look) on a gravelly/rocky bank disappeared too.
Horses lovely too. Though Lucy looks like someone poured bleach on her in that shed-out picture…almost like a ghost horse.