Just a quick update to let you know Pookey Bear is well.

He is moving nicely and is only a tad uncomfortable when at rest. His new trim looks great!

His nursemaid, on the other hand, is not doing so well.

The photo above? Nota bene: that middle board is the central beam that runs down the middle of our house, the two side boards are the rafters that tie into it, or should I say, 'tied' into it, as in 'past tense.'

The record drought has wreaked havoc with our house as well as with our hay budget, resulting in (as you see above) the skeleton of the house coming undone.

Ignore the spider. He is the least of my worries.

Also, I have been forced into a computer 'fast' because hubby has decided that excessive computer use has caused me to have some visual/cognitive/concentration problems, resulting in my 'bumping into' one of our cars with another one of our cars...several times...

So I am limited to fifteen minutes a day, except for those tasks that theoretically I can perform without looking at the screen, like typing.

Have you ever tried typing without looking at the screen?

You wind up sending out some really funny e-mails! Don't ask me how I know!

So yesterday, in an attempt to focus on a 'bricks and mortar' type task to improve my concentration, and to save a few bucks, I decided to make my own laundry detergent.

Unfortunately, the recipe did not mention that the primary ingredients--washing soda and Borax--will scrape the surface right off of a $229 saucepan.

Who'd da thunk it?

Pasture? What's that?

After thirty years spent plowing, seeding, watering, mowing, spraying, and fertilizing, this is what I have to show for it: twenty acres of crunchy brown straw, and a series of gaping cracks in the ground that look like a scaled-down version of Palo Duro Canyon.

The cracks are so extensive, and so deep and wide, that I can no longer risk even hand walking Pookey Bear. So he is confined to quarters until it rains, which seems like it might be never.

For fun, and to help offset my feelings of impending agricultural doom, I have been playing a variation of the game we all played as little kids, where we looked up in the sky and imagined the different kinds of animals we saw in the clouds. Only I am using cracks in the ground.

Do you see a coyote in this one? I do. At least I hope it's a coyote, and not The Wolf at the Door...

Praying for rain!

Parched in Texas

Finally Frisky!

After a long absence, I am finally bowing to pressure from the multitudes of followers out there who have been demanding a recent update on Pookey Bear.

Thanks to both of you for caring!

Pookey is doing great, as the attached video clip will attest. His recent trim at La Mesa left him very comfortable afterward, and as long as he remembers to lace up his boots before he leaves his stall, he is having no problems with our drought-hardened, rock-like blackland soil.

Hope the clip works. I am experimenting with iMovie--gee, there's a learning curve!--and just figured out how to attach sound.

Couldn't figure out how to mute my shouted instructions, however, so please ignore.

The soundtrack might not be totally synched or appropriate, but it was free. Daughter and her talented friend are available for weddings, quinceaneras and bar mitzvahs as long as the gig is within 30 miles of College Station, and pays enough to cover their gas.

Pop-art Appaloosa

Since apps are all the rage these days, I thought I would share my pop-art App, who is enjoying having the entire pasture to himself since Pookey Bear cannot eat grass.

A quick update on Pookey: he seems to be working out of his most recent bout of soreness a bit, and had a good report on his last farrier/doctor visit. I am suspicious that some of his soreness is due to more abscesses forming--will they ever end?

At least he is moving around nicely in his boots again, and he seems to be picking up weight as well. Unfortunately, his caregiver (me) is back to soaking hay--not real convenient when I am in a hurry, but when I have the luxury of time, I fill up his tub, then run the cool water down my legs and into my Crocs.

Summertime, and the livin' is easy!

As many of you are painfully aware--because you caught wind of my weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth--Pookey Bear is once again under the weather, having suffered for several days with intermittent colic.

Not to worry! We are now throwing everything but the kitchen sink at him, confident that he will mend.

In the meantime, no new photos--just like those celebrities, he doesn't want to be caught not looking his best!

But we felt it was important to celebrate his birthday with an artist's rendering (courtesy of his 'auntie') and a few words about the glowing report he received at his recent doctor visit.

Thanks to top-flight veterinary care, a fabulous farrier, and an incomparable nurse (that would be me) Pookey Bear's feet are finally starting to look better, both inside and out. He has been feeling better for several months, with most days being completely painfree, and his gait (in boots) being very relaxed and relatively sound. But yesterday's radiographs showed that he is also improving on the inside: he is growing good sole on both feet, his medio-lateral balance is improving, and he grew enough toe in four weeks that Joe actually had to put some muscle into the nippers!

Amazingly, he walked on the concrete at the clinic completely barefoot, and looked very comfortable doing so. It is amazing because it is just eight months after his tendon surgery, and just a few short months since he was still battling acute pain from abscesses. Dr. D and Dr. W have okayed more hand-walking and light hand-jogging to rebuild lost muscle mass. (I assume that will be working for me, too? If Pookey winds up looking like Obvious Conclusion, am I going to wind up looking like Flo Jo? Or is it likely the best I can hope for is Billie Jean King?)

If Pookey could talk (my other half insists he CAN'T!) I know that he would like to thank his farrier, doctors, banker, owners, and friends for all of their help and support.

But I suspect that he might also add the following:

"Today was my 12th birthday. I was hoping for some carrots and a cake. Instead, they hung a bag of fluids on me, threw me in the trailer, hauled me for hours, rasped my achin' dogs, and bombarded me with yet another round of gamma rays. Then one of my doctors--who has always been so nice to me!--stuck his arm someplace I didn't like, and as if that wasn't enough, my caretaker stuck a garden hose someplace else I didn't like after I got home!

"They say they are trying to help me. Yeah, right...thanks a lot for the help! What's gonna happen when I turn 13, a catheterization and a colonoscopy?"

A rope, a round pen, and a little magic

Saturday morning I left Pookey Bear at home munching timothy, and ventured eastward to witness an amazing demonstration of horsemanship.

Our friend Dwayne Rhea, a clinician from Sulphur Springs, was conducting a mini-clinic at a veterinary hospital open house, using the black filly pictured above as one of his subjects. We arrived early enough to see her in her natural state in the round pen, wild-eyed, shivering in the howling wind, petrified of everything that moved.

I figured Dwayne had his work cut out for him. It seemed to me as if getting her to lead--or just to drop her head--would be amazing enough, but getting her to load willingly in a trailer, as the demonstration promised? I'd have to see it to believe it!

Amazingly, in a little less than an hour, he did just that. Not only was the filly quiet and relaxed through the head and neck, and following him around like a puppy dog, she also loaded happily into the trailer, multiple times, without a hint of fear. Most remarkable of all, the final time he loaded her, he did so after removing her halter and lead!

To someone who has to beg their been-there-done-that gelding to please, please, puh-leeze get in the trailer (Puh-leeze? Where are the carrots? Where are my helpers? Where is the broom, and the buggy whip?) it was an incredible feat. And he did it all without whips or pulleys or gimmicks--simply by gaining her trust, and showing her what he wanted.

No question about it--as soon as Pookey's feet grow out another couple of inches, we are working on loading, and--if the stars align--maybe even on backing out of the trailer! If I can get him to do that happily, willingly, and calmly, I figure I might just take my show on the road.

Dwayne, could you use someone to 'open' for you?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Asking her to move her hindquarters

"Oh, so that's what you want!"

The Reward

Me, not so much...

Pookey Bear had an absolutely wonderful, stupendous day yesterday!

Me, not so much.

I woke up at the crack of dawn to head over to a surgical center in Fort Worth, where I was taking my sister to have her gallbladder removed. This brought back a flood of unhappy memories from my gallbladder surgery 20 years ago: suffering the agony of repeated attacks, writhing in pain in the hospital bed while they waited for my lab numbers to get decent enough to operate, enduring life-threatening complications after a botched surgery--and, to add insult to injury, sticking rigidly to the recommended diet afterwards, only to pack on 45 pounds in one year.

Not a happy time!

Fortunately my sister was in good health to start with, and--as the doctor predicted--her surgery went great.

So great, in fact, that within twenty minutes of being wheeled into recovery, she was standing up and drinking a Coke!

When the young doctor bounced in with photos of her innards, he spent a great deal of time waxing eloquent about what incredible shape she was in, how absolutely remarkable that a woman her age had such a youthful body, that he had called over other doctors and nurses to share in his amazement, and that they had all insisted upon seeing her chart, to verify that she was in fact not a twenty-year-old, which her lithe, athletic frame seemed to declare.

I stood silently by, trying to blend my pasty, wrinkled, XXXL frame into the wallpaper, hoping I would escape the scrutiny of the flat-bellied medical team.

But no! One of the nurses turned to me with my sister's bag of belongings, and said,

'Here, Mom, why don't you hold onto these while your daughter gets dressed.'

Mom?!?

Given her age, that would put me in my seventies!

Needless to say, this facility will not be receiving a donation from me during this year's fund-raising drive!