Rat, Corn, Gourd, Wrist, Toots, Car, End

We have several volunteer corn stalks springing up around the ranch. Cracks us up. Max said the rats did a good job spreading the love around.

Guys, keep us in your prayers. Tomorrow (Tuesday morning) a few of us are going to check out three different locations for the pumpkin stand. Time is a ticking! We hope to make a smart, safe decision and quick!

One of the new "pumpkins" will have this year. Somewhere. At that one place. TBA.

Anyone notice the lovely wrist model?

From the vault of summers past--2009. Sweet Tootsie receiving a little love. What a fantastic horse she is.

Sniff, sniff. Shout-out to my vehicle as it spends a lonely night at the fix-it shop. Sounds like we probably have a bad fuel pump on our hands. Should I take comfort in the fact I didn't get bad gas for $96 today? Nah, probably not.

The randomness ends. Now.

Chew On This

So listen--I'll scratch your back,

If you scratch mine.

Tootsie and the Vet

Max posting:

I thought that I would give you a little update on how Tootsie is healing after her run in with a fence several weeks ago. This is how her leg looked a couple days after the vet stitched her up.



Yes, the white areas in the middle of the wound are her tendon. The edge of the fence scraped off much of the outer sheath.



After many redressing sessions, her "laceration" is healing nicely. She shows no sign of pain or discomfort.

We still have another 3 weeks or so before she is fully healed and does not require any more bandages but all is well.

In other news, our vets came out to the ranch and vaccinated all of the horses. The rest of this post is a photo essay.

Oh, and they also did Coggins on all of them as well. After I get my hauling papers, I will finally be legal to transport all of the equines. Don't tell anyone, but I have been driving them around for quite a while without all of this stuff.

Thanks and good night.

P.S. All of the pictures were taken with my iPhone.

Poor Toots

Gross leg wound pictures alert! Stop if you're squeamish.

When Max went out to feed this morning, he discovered that Toots had a rather nasty cut on her leg. Poor girl! She has also had a couple cuts on her face over the last few months. Max has theorized for some time now that her vision is failing. He looked all over pen but could not figure out how she could have cut it. He said with a wound that big, it should be something fairly obvious but no luck. The other horses in the pen have not been hurt at all.

Doesn't it look terrible?! Max whipped out his cell phone and snapped a couple shots for the blog. What a guy.

He loaded up Ms. Limpy and headed to the vet for some stitches. Sure enough, the vet confirmed our sweetie pie has some pretty severe cataracts. He said she won't be going blind any time in the near future, she just has to contend with blurry vision from now on. That's the bad news. Good news is that her leg should heal nicely. In the picture below you can see her tendon exposed--just terrible.

We're hoping Toots can still end up being a valuable asset to the herd. She is a beautiful horse with a very loving nature. Now that she and all those crazy boy horses have calmed down (go ahead and read here if you want to be refreshed on my immature side),we hope to be able to use her more and more. She went into heat too many times last summer to be used much by our participants. What a difference a few months make. Trish and Melissa used her the other day with their daughters to give Toots a little work and the girls a ride. She did very well.

I'll keep you posted on her healing.

Toots Settles In

Thursday late morning Tootsie, our newly acquired mare, began pacing in the pen. The evening before she had been moved from the catch pen close to most of the geldings and put in another pen. She clearly was upset being separated from the other horses. She walked back and forth so much we started fearing she was going to overheat. Leah, our new super volunteer (post for another day! LOVE her!) suggested we put her in the pen with Flame and Black, two of our older gentleman. Max and I had considered this idea even before we brought Toots back but were not sure if she would harm herself and/or Flame if she was still in heat. (Black is getting a little R & R at Steph's house while he recovers from that nasty tooth infection.) What we were doing wasn't working, so it was time to move on.


Toots was brought over the the new pen and then given a sponge ice bath by three adoring girls.



Toots seemed to thoroughly enjoy the loving.

Kelsey, a regular at GG, watched the fun and seemed to enjoy herself as well. She has been itching to ride Toots, but we have not allowed it because the horse has been um, adjusting.

We determined that Toots was now calm enough to let Kelsey in on the bath action.

When Leah thought Toots had all the wiping she could enjoy for the day, she poured the remainder of the ice water on her. That horse is so gentle and calm, she didn't even move.

The rest of the afternoon and into the evening Toots was relaxed and happy. I guess just being near (they're separated by a fence) another horse settled her down. I know all you horse people out there would probably know that--we're just not well versed in the mare phenomenon. Flame seems a very good companion. At his former home, he lived with two mares and he loved Cheyenne, the other mare we used to have. (Side note--Flame is a rock star horse this year and we're so grateful for him!)

When Max was at the ranch today he saw a very content mare who let him love all over her. I wish you all could see just how sweet she is.

Now the crazy part of this blog. We were all surprised to see Toots pick through her food and eat the stems but leave the leaves. Really?? All other 12 horses do it completely opposite. Another mare thing? Steph, our neighbor, said she has never seen a horse do that. Do any of your horses do the same? (Ginger, did she do this with you guys?)The truly cool thing about this scenario is that both Black and Flame eat only the leaves and discard the stems! Win/win! Waste not! Yin and Yang. Old sock for every old shoe. Jack Sprat could eat no fat, his wife could eat no lean. Am I missing any? Max said between Flame and Toots, it all looked nice and clean.

I think Toots was destined to live at Galloping Grace, and I can't wait to see if I'm right. One thing's for sure, she's no longer bored!

Wink Away Now

At the end of my last post I promised multiple subjects for this evening. I got to thinking, do you really need more after what I'm about to show you?


I did warn that this post might not be appropriate for younger readers. Now I'm going to say it isn't--appropriate that is. I'm sure I'll let my older children read, but only because they saw it in person. If you get easily offended or do not want to be let down by my childish posting, please stop reading now. I'd hate for you to think less of me. I'm a pleaser after all!


Giving you a little more time to stop. I'm nice like that.


Some of you might recall our strict NO MARES policy. If policies are made, they can be broken, right? So we meet the sweetest horse the other night and bring her back to GG. We love Toots already. She is calm and gentle. I wondered for a few brief seconds if she was too calm. Hee hee. Funny thing for me to wonder because I'm all about the nearly done older animals for children. She spends her first night in the arena because it was dark and we didn't want to leave her near the other horses. When Max gets there in the morning she is relaxed, happy, and friendly. He then moves her to a little catch pen by the other horses to spend the day acclimating. That is when the fun began.


B Houdini (formally known as Buff) and Shorty were mesmerized. So were most of the other horses. There was just something about her that they really liked. Only minutes after her arrival, Max discovered what it was. She was in MAJOR heat! Max couldn't believe it. He specifically checked before taking her over and saw no signs.

For a horse I thought was very calm, she became a flirting animal--literally!

She spent the entire day at the fence teasing them with her scent. You can see in the above picture how "it" was running down her legs. The males were all riled up, kicking and screaming--all probably trying to impress the new beauty on campus.

I'm not being too gross, am I?

You ready for the winking? I realize a lot of you horse owners know all about this. This is for my readers who are in the dark about this issue, just like I was yesterday morning before my nature lesson.

She opened and closed, opened and closed. It was a sight to see. Perhaps she was excited to be around other horses again. I wonder if she could tell that none of them were even capable of getting the job done right. The only stud we have on the premises is Poncho, the miniature. The rest were gelded years ago.

I think somewhere in their missing parts area was a memory, an instinct, a longing.

There were some humans standing around snickering as I snapped these shots. I knew, in my heart of hearts, than YOU would want me in there collecting all the facts for this post. I would never want to short change my loyal readers.

Cochise had us all laughing with the faces he was making. He did that thing with his mouth they usually do when you find the perfect scratching spot on their bellies.

He would take a whiff

and do it over and over again!

Toots is definitely loved by the equines and humans alike.

Things did calm down the second part of today. Perhaps I'll show that to you tomorrow.

Ginger (Tootsie's owner), we're not giving up on her yet. We love her to pieces and want this to work. We'll see what this weekend brings.

Tootsie's In The House

I got a call on Monday from a lady named Ginger. She heard about GG from Karen and Larry, the sweet people who donated Flame. She wanted to possibly donate a horse to us. The problem--her horse is a mare. We have adopted a no mare policy because of the issues we had in the past. Max's motto, "Women are trouble." Please note he doesn't mean this in the slightest.

As I talked to Ginger, she made it clear that her horse was excellent for children, even being used in the past for hippotheaphy. How could we not take a looky (with our trailer in tow.) We drove up into the mountains to see this little beauty.


This girl is Isabel, 7 years old. Even though we were looking to take her horse away, she was still all smiles. So was Abbi, her nine year old sister. Apparently Ginger explained that their horse would get a lot of love and attention if we were to take her. The girls were sad, but they looked like they truly wanted what was best. Such maturity, huh?Here is Claire leading Toots, or Tootsie for long, around a bit. Test number one passed with flying colors. She was very responsive to Claire and stopped when Claire stopped. Brooke was up next with a little ride through their field. Does the look on Brooke's face tell you anything? She loved Toots right away. .

For not being ridden much in the last few years, she did great. She was a little barn sour but got over it once she was taken out a ways Besides Ginger, Abbi, and Isabel being very friendly, they also had four super sweet dogs. Two were especially fond of Grant. He was smothered in doggie kisses.
After Garrett took a little spin on Tootsie, he made himself at home shooting some hoops.

The kids, Max and I (a little) messed all around Tootsie's face, hooves, etc. Max said that was one of the most quiet/gentle horses he has ever been around. She is not head shy in the slightest. Also, she let the children all jump on bareback without moving a muscle.

Isabel got on her horse for one last ride. It broke my heart a bit.
Then it was mom's turn. Around this time I couldn't believe these sweet ladies were willing to part with their awesome horse! I'm telling you--we're so blessed!

I had the girls pose for a last picture with Tootsie before we hauled her away. Now the trailer test. Max leaned over to Tootsie and said, "If you load easily I really love you."

Tootsie smelled the trailer and the mysterious aroma of bovine feces,

and then hopped right in with her stiff little legs! What an angel.

The Wade children couldn't help but make themselves at home a little more before leaving.

And this what we saw as we drove off. . .

generous little girls with gigantic hearts!

When we made it back to the ranch, Tootsie was put in a round pen for the night. My mom, our friend Nancy, and Trish met us there to see the newest member to the family. Like I mentioned in last night's post, we were all smitten. Tootsie didn't seem to care she was in a strange new place with unfamiliar humans all around her. She let us pet and love all over her. Brooke and Trish both jumped on her bareback as she munched her hay. Again, she didn't move a muscle.

Thanks so much, Ginger, Abbi, and Isabel. We have a feeling your gift with touch many children's hearts!

There is quite a story once she was penned close to the geldings. I'll leave that for tomorrow night.  That post will probably not be G rated. What can I say--it's nature.

Also up tomorrow--a meeting with a Rio Rancho official, a child nearly passing out from heat exhaustion, and some sad/exciting news! Never a dull day at GGYR.