NASTR 75 - In Which pft and I Ride 75 Miles and pft Gets Whacked in the Face by Branches

At 25 miles - Photo: Bill Gore

Well, in time-honoured tradition, the NASTR 75 plan that wasn't really a plan came off way smoother than expected. Is there a correlation between worry and what will go wrong? i.e. the more you worry, the less likely it is that the things you are worrying about will cause any problems at all? Of course, there were the mandatory glitches, but nothing overwhelming, and they involved none of the things I'd been fretting about all week.

The Day Before

It was a scrabble to get there on time - we were running so late (even later than our Predictably Late lateness) that we had to scuttle around like mad things once we got there to get everything ready. So much for socialising.

One of the last minute "emergencies" involved a discussion between pft and I about which tights to wear. He wondered about some elastic-nearly-gone tights that had knee padding, over a newer pair. I worried that the bagginess from lack of elastic would cause rubs (happened to me at 20MT last year). Turns out that he was already getting knee rubs from the saddle. He's been using a shortie-sheepskin cover - it's very very cushy, but only for the butt and upper thigh - no protection down lower. I have a longer sheepskin, but it was pretty tired and had been more or less retired due to being ripped at the attachment points. It has been sitting on my copious "mending pile" for months. Looked like I needed to do some emergency mending.

So I got out the needle and thread and sewed up the torn parts, then proceeded to add various strategically-placed grommets to get the thing really firmly attached to the saddle. Luckily, I've got one of these longer sheepskins on my saddle, so I know how to rig them up and what the pitfalls were if you didn't get it firmly attached.

Once at ride camp, we speed-tacked up Fergus and I had pft trot him up and down to make sure it was going to work OK - because you know that trotting 200' is going to show you exactly how something will perform over 75 miles. Unfortunately, he was wearing jeans that were rucking up, so it was hard to tell what was a wrinkle in his jeans and what might be a wrinkle in the saddle cover. The fact that you're not supposed to try anything new on ride day was in the back of my mind, so my Emergency Plan involved adding the shortie sheepskin (and the grommet kit) to an auxiliary crew bag in case we should need to make a switch at the vet check if we discovered that the longer sheepskin wasn't working.

Of course, the sheepskin (experted mounted on the saddle, if I do say so myself) performed flawlessly and pft never even noticed it was there all day.

One of my other tasks was to get both pones braided up. The temps were forecast to be in the mid 80s, so I knew we'd be sponging a lot. I ran the other day - first time in a year - and know how good and refreshing and rejuvenating splashing myself in the creek half-way along had felt - and I resolved to do much, much better about sponging the horse at EVERY opportunity. Sponges and soft-sided scoops were added to the tack pile.

We may be slow, but at least my pones look smart in their braids:

Feeling fraught, we finally sat down to supper at 11:30 pm.

We set our alarm for 3:30 am although neither of us slept that well. But getting up that early did make for a reasonably relaxed start to the day, as well as giving us time to get the "horse stations" ready for the evening (filling water buckets to the brim and setting out full hay bags). I knew from past experience that the less we had to do when we came in at the end of the ride, the better (...and, yup, once again by the end, I proved incapable of getting the T-fasteners done up on Roo's blankie - and his is the easiest one to do up).

(I'm still not sure I managed to actually eat any breakfast, though, now I think about it. Hmmm.)

Figuring out what to wear was tricky - it was warm enough to be in shirt sleeves, until the breeze kicked in. I eventually opted for a cami top with sunshirt over it, and my fleece vest on top of that. pft wore a hoodie - and we were glad of the extra layers going through the canyon in the early morning. By about 8:30 a.m. I was starting to bake and the vest got elasticked onto the back of the saddle (I have a couple of string-elastic toggles back there which I can maneuver clothing into without turning around in my saddle).

Loop 1 - 0-25 miles

Fergus got quite excited watching the front-runners warming up in the sand arena immediately adjacent to our trailer, so we let everyone go ahead and ambled out at about 5:05 a.m., both horses on a loose rein, both pretty laid-back about the whole situation. Mindful of my warming up lessons during rehab with Uno, I made us walk for ten minutes before picking up the trot. Andrew Gerhardt came flying past saying "you should make time while it's still cool" - and I told him we still had three minutes of walking to go.

The first few miles are easy hard-packed dirt road that climbs gradually before dropping into El Dorado Canyon. I don't know if the creek in El Dorado Canyon runs the entire summer (possibly, since I think it's spring-fed), but there was plenty of water in it at the end of May. With so much greenery and water, it's a riparian oasis for birds and animals.

The cave about 2/3rds of the way
through El Dorado Canyon

I love the first 2-3 hours of this ride - it's all technical stuff - dropping into the creekbed, scrambling over rocks, balancing through babyheads, clambering up the side of the banks. There were mini-bogs, endless stream crossings, a multitude of pine boughs to poke your eye out on, willows to dodge, cottonwoods to duck under. We passed through the middle of a jeepers' camp, passed strange rock formations (this canyon is very volcanic), passed a cave big enough to live in, as well as several that were big enough to squeeze into, and it's all interspersed with sections of footing that is good enough to trot at will - if only for 50' at a time.

Fergus and pft led the way and did a great job getting us through in a seamless fashion - no easy feat when you're pacing for two very-unevenly sized/strided horses.

Illinois Canyon (a side canyon to El Dorado) rock formations

We were caught and passed by two groups of 50-mile front runners (a group of five, followed by a group of three) - earlier than usual to be passed, but I think it was them pushing each other rather than the speed we were going.

Picking our way through the babyhead rocks
in Illinois Canyon 

When we finally got out on the main dirt road - Sunrise Pass Rd - Roo was eager to get on with it and asked to canter. It's a level, minimally-rutted road  so I let him play a little. pft got Fergus cantering as well and pretty soon both boys were racing each other along the ledge of road, having a lot of fun and not pacing correctly for a 75 mile ride at all. We pulled them down to a walk and then let them go again. And that was enough. For the next half hour or so, every time we tried to get them to trot sensibly, they wanted to canter and race each other.

We stopped and sponged and got them a drink at the slightly-off-trail creek (didn't look like many riders had bothered with this drinking/sponging opportunity) - and four of the six people I knew were behind us snuck on by while we were down there. At the top of the climb, the remaining pair of riders came past and thus we were in last place - at 20 miles.

Climbing the only hill of any significance on the course.
Despite the apparent lack of real hills, we still ended up doing
6,000'+ of climbing (and descent) by the end of the day.

...and clambering down the other side among the rocks - Slide Mtn in the distance on the right.

Shortly after this, Fergus' RF size 3 glue-one came off. This was no great surprise - it's the one where the glue was set up before I even got it on his foot. I was pleased that it lasted as long as it did. pft got off and put on a strap-on Glove and off we went again. This turned out to be the only "boot event" of the entire 75 miles. Roo's four glue-ons and Fergus' remaining three never moved (and, as I type this on Wednesday evening, are still firmly on their feet - removal is going to have to wait until the weekend because it's going to require some serious work to get them off and I haven't gotten home from work before 10 p.m. this week). The sparsie Glove gave Fergus no problem either - picking up minimal grit despite the sandwashes and the creek crossings, didn't rub, and didn't shift the whole ride.

For once Roo out-drank and out-peed Fergus - not a common occurrence.

Fergus usually out-drinks Roo by about three to one, but on this ride, for some reason Roo was in drinking mode. Fergus still got As on hydration, but Roo drank and drank - and peed often as a result. Good pony. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come (it only took him 1700 miles to figure it out).

We got into the 26 mile vet check just past 10 a.m. - five hours which was pretty good going for the terrain and minor booting-interlude.

This was a 40 minute hold, but wasn't really long enough to sort out two people and two horses.

Arriving at the first vet check at 26 miles - still grinning
Photo: Bob Hall

Does this couple look like they have any clue what they're doing??
Photo: Bob Hall

Making up the horse meals the night before -
exactly how much food do two horses need to complete a 75?

When Roo and I did this ride in 2007, I didn't pack enough food for him at the holds (not sure what I was thinking, but apparently failed to take into account the extra 25 miles). So this time, I packed enough food for each hold, plus a bit more ... and then doubled it for the two horses. Added to that were people water bottles - ride management were providing people water at the vet check, but I've been caught out by that before* - one of the pitfalls of riding at the back - so always carry extra. And then doubled that for two people. The result was the stupid crew-box was so heavy I couldn't lift it on my own.

(* turns out this wasn't unreasonable. Whilst they didn't run out, they were running very low by the time we left on our final leg back to camp).

All my boys resting in the shade at the first vet check. 

The trouble with not being able to lift it was the box was in one place and the horses and pft were in another, so I had to shuttle individual items back and forth which didn't make for a very restful 40 minutes. I did manage to elyte the horses (Gina's magic recipe that they have no objection to) before we left, knowing that there was a water trough just a couple of miles up the trail. But we still left the check about 15-20 minutes late.

Leaving on the next leg
Photo: Bob Hall

Loop 2 - 25-50 miles

This was the Kalahari Loop and possibly one of my least favorites of any ride I've ever done. This loop brings out the true meaning of "endurance".

Firstly, it's 25 miles long.

Secondly, it goes out into the desert where there are no trees and no shade.

And thirdly, it does this during the hottest part of the day causing you to become a shrivelled, dessicated thing the longer you're out there.

The first time I ever rode this loop convinced me I needed one of those large Salamander "beak" brims - and I've ridden with one ever since.

The good thing is they've moved the ride date of NASTR 75 to a month earlier - the end of May instead of June, making it marginally less warm, but it was still toasty out there. Of interest is the fact that pft said he never felt uncomfortable, while I was totally baking for most of the five hours we were out there. Unsure if this is:

A) Because I'm a girl and have more, er, "covering" than pft, esp. in the front (even more especially since he dropped over 20 lbs in the last few months... a HW he is no longer, so I told him he mustn't top-ten anything because they'll find out when they weigh him).
B) Because he's riding a great big horse with a really slow tempo, so not working up a lot of heat from activity (this seems possible - I die of heat when riding Small Thing because of the fast tempo).
C) Because I'm 48 and hormonal (this seems unlikely, but was suggested to me today by someone at work).
D) Because girls naturally run hotter than boys.

I wore one of those soaked neck-roll things with the gel inside and spent the entire loop, every three minutes, rolling it on my neck so the cool part was against my skin. I also dabbed at my face with my horse sponge at regular intervals, and re-dunked the neck roll and re-moistened* the sponge at every one of the four water troughs along the way.

(* one of the few perks of riding at the back - you can use your sponge in the trough because there's no one behind you).

I only dropped my neck-roll in the trough once.
And persuaded pft to get off to rescue it.
He's a good husband.

Loop 2 has all the fun stuff at the start - a wildly steep drop down into a sand wash, the sand wash that has lovely wildflowers and glimpses of a view through the V at the bottom, followed by a long chunk of twisty fun singletrack in the sagebrush.

Here's a little video of the steep drop into the sand wash - the video doesn't make it look nearly as steep as it actually is, but trust me, it's steep:

In the sand wash

Nearly to the bottom

Twisty singletrack in the sagebrush

The twisty singletrack section was thoughtfully extended by ride management this year and although it rode a little longer (and a good chunk was in deep, paranoia-provoking sand), it was still a lot of fun. The trick on this trail is to try to stay *on* the trail as it wends its way around the bushlets. And, in the case of riding Roo behind Fergus, staying *on top* of the horse when your body is following the trail around the bush and Roo decides to jog the opposite direction to cut the corner to keep up with Fergus. I only came close to coming off a couple of times. Roo led for some of this, Fergus led for some of this. And after a while we all had to walk for a bit because you can only have too much of a good thing before parts of you start to hurt.

Coming out on the good-footing road at the trough (where I dropped my neck thing), we stopped to talk to several off-roaders who were curious about the ride and what we were doing. After this trough interlude, I explained to pft that we needed to trot as much as possible because there were going to be places later in the day where we wouldn't be able to. And we did pretty good for a pair of riders who have little motivation to trot continously. We egged each other on - taking it in turns to lead. We even cantered a little in a nice relaxed way (I know this was relaxed because I was able to reach down and rescue my escapee sponge as we were going along).

But again, there's only so much trotting you can do before you get the bleahs. Peddling two horses wasn't much fun. At the turning under the powerlines, Roo's homing beacon kicked in a little and he set off in the front - only to spook hugely at a large white boulder and nearly dump me. I could get him to go, but only if Fergus kept up and F was less and less interested in doing so.

Turning into the hot wash I came very close to nearly falling asleep in the saddle and was only saved by Roo stopping to pee - thus providing a bit of minor interest. We trudged along, peddling them into a trot as best we could as often as we could, which didn't seem to be very often.

Wilting in the Kalahari

There was a strange dead truck in the middle of the wash at one point, and that provided some interest for a short while.

And then embarrassingly, along came Scott Dutcher (part of ride management) on an ATV. I assume they sent him out to look for us, which is never a good sign. I announced to pft that from here on out, if we *could* trot, we *would* trot - and luckily from about there onwards, there was plenty of trotting opportunity. On the dirt road coming in (usually my most hated section), I got Roo in front and he went for it - trotting the whole way in in front at a good clip, with only two short 30 second walking breaks that he instigated - and started to trot again without me asking.

We arrived back at the vet check 5 hr 10 mins after we left 25 miles earlier. Again, not too bad - at this point we'd gone 51 miles in 11 hours. Not great, but still within parameters provided we stayed on track and didn't dawdle any further.

We had an hour hold at this point - much needed. The vet check was deserted of other horses, so we left Roo and Fergus unattended in front of a huge pile of hay and sat in the partial shade of a tree. Thanks to Kelly Williams coming in from the next loop, I even got my mind to turn off while chatting with her and munched down some chicken pasta salad, despite feeling queasy from heat and tiredness.

Loop 3 - 50-60 miles

I did not manage to remember to elyte the horses, or to put my soaking neck roll back on my neck leaving on this next loop, so it didn't start quite how it was supposed to. We met two big groups of riders coming in off this loop, which always makes you a little nervous - it shows exactly how far behind you are. But I was OK with our situation. It wasn't great, but I told pft we could still make it provided we didn't dawdle and we trotted everything that could be trotted.

And the loop started off great. pft put Fergus in front and off we went - trotting solidly for about three miles, including another long gradual downhill. pft normally hates to trot downhill, but he did a great job here - really making some time and I was impressed - as well as relieved that we were making time and would be back on track in no time.

And then everything went south.

Roo will lead on his terms - when his radar kicks in, or on occasions when he starts to feel brave. He won't do it consistently, however. Fergus is happy to lead most of the time, and will do so at a good pace.

Except on this loop he decided he didn't want to. And here's where Roo's Wimp Self gets REALLY frustrating. There are times when I NEED him to pick up the slack and go in front and trot when told - and he won't. Partly it was the two horses feeding off each other - the one in front wouldn't trot without the one behind coming too - and the one behind, half the time, was so lethargic in his response that by the time you got him trotting, the one in front had decided he wasn't coming and stopped trotting. So we walked a good chunk of the second half of this loop, particularly when it started uphill and  pft thought Fergus was too tired to do more.

Coming in the last couple of miles, we met the lady on the pinto who we'd overtaken at around five miles into the ride. She was now about an hour ahead of us. That was a demoralizing moment and I started to think that we were in serious trouble.

We had three choices:

1. Do a RO pull at the next vet check (60 miles). I didn't particularly want to do this, but if pft decided that neither he nor Fergus were up for the last 15 mile section, and opted to pull, I wasn't convinced that I'd be able to get Roo out of the vet check and back to the finish on his own. Remember his Wimp Self.
2. Continue along the trail, but with no energy and go overtime.
3. Continue along the trail, but make some serious time by upping that energy and trotting everything we could.

pft was not amused. Words were said.

As it turned out, Option 1. seemed to be off the table. There was no horse trailer at the vet check when we arrived. I assume it had taken some pulled-horses back to camp and hadn't returned (it's about a 50 minute, very bumpy, trailer ride back to camp).

The horses looked really good at the vet check - Fergus in particular (so much for the "he's too tired") - scoring nearly all As. The vet said they looked good and that they'd looked good all day, which was a nice compliment. We may be slow, but at least our horses look good. Roo did well for his check, but I noticed him taking a few funky steps just before our trot out, and one during the trot out, and knew he was getting crampy in his right rear. This is his biggest weakness and when he gets crampy, he'll kick out with that leg. He kicked out as we were getting ready to leave and my heart sank. It would either get better, or we'd be pulled at the finish.

As far as getting to the finish, I hoped that we could turn things around and go with Option 3.

The remaining vet check staff (yay them) got pft a sandwich and he got to sit for a bit. Meanwhile, I ran around like a maniac, taping glowsticks to both horses, elyting them, grabbing our warm clothing, stuffing things frantically back into the crew box (predictably, the horses had enjoyed the hay so much that they only ate about a third of the "special" food I'd brought them, so I couldn't fit everything back into the carefully-packed box). Ended up having to bungie things to the outside of the box just to group it all together.

A big thank you to the volunteers for looking after pft here, and for having to deal with our stupid large box. If pft and I continue to ride together, I think we need to divide our crew junk into 3-4 containers, because the one enormously-heavy box (along the the lightweight auxiliary crew bag of horse coolers, sheepskin cover and grommet kit) doesn't work.

Before we left, I wolfed down a yoghurt and 2/3rd of an Ensure in literally about 20 seconds - who knew you could do that? (guaranteed to make you puke).

an assortment of glowsticks on our breast collars

Loop 4 - 60-75 miles

We were out of the final vet check at 7:55 p.m. Sunset was at 8:15 and it would be dark-dark by 8:50, so we had a little under and hour of daylight to get as much trail covered as we could.

The volunteers told us "Make as much time as you can in the daylight" and we didn't need any urging - we were out of there and trotting within 50'. Evidently the sandwich did good for pft, he put Fergus in front and off we went. Poor Fergus had never been worked so hard - pft made him trot all the way to the trough (uphill), where we paused to let them drink (after elyting them) and I handed pft a couple of Tylenol. And off we went again.

Connie Creech told us at the ride meeting that Sullivan Canyon was in the worst shape she'd seen it in years, with lots of whups from motorcycles and lots of erosion. We trotted as best we could - once again, pft did some great work on the downhill stuff and trotted for as long as he could before it got too dark to do so safely. After that, we just had to rely on Fergus' super powers of Big Walking.

That's a big horse
Photo: Diana Hiesalu-Bain

The strangest thing for me on that section was I kept hallucinating a wire strung across the trail about five foot above my head. This happened about every 20 seconds for about 10 minutes in the dwindling light - several times I even ducked to avoid it. No idea what my brain was doing, but it was odd.

From having done Tevis with Fergus, I knew he was good at following the trail, but I don't think I realised *how* good. This trail in Sullivan and El Dorado Canyon isn't exactly the easiest to follow, with many twists and turns and sudden sideways drops into the creek. Although they'd put out glow-sticks, they were very few and far between and really only served as confidence markers - more a "Yup, you're still on the right trail" type of thing. Fergus led us in nearly the whole way almost flawlessly - only taking about three wrong turns over the course of about ten miles.

At one point, Roo pulled over to pee, so Fergus did likewise. For once Roo (who is the slowest pee-er in horsedom) was done sooner, so pulled back onto the trail and set off in front. Only I have no idea where the trail was, or where we were (keeping in mind we'd done this section first thing in the morning). We ended up dropping down a steep embankment and going along for a while - presumably on the trail - but I have no idea. Roo stayed in front for about five minutes before he started gawping at every single rock and twig alongside the trail. He was weaving around to avoid them all, so I finally had pft put Fergus back in front again - figured I'd either get dumped, or we'd just never make it in time.

The worst spook he did was trotting to catch Fergus up (although he did an amazing job himself of Big Walk, his still isn't quite as fast as F's, so we'd still have to periodically jog-trot to catch up) - he came around a bush and there was a huge white boulder hiding behind it. He dropped out from under me like a brick but luckily didn't go too far sideways.

When pft is riding Fergus, he's about foot taller than I am on Roo and he'd gotten slapped in the face by tons of pine branches in the daylight and I was quite worried that he'd lose an eye on the trail in the dark. The glow-sticks not only lit up the trail around the horses, but they also lit up the branches above us to some extent. Pft still got pretty battered, but at least wasn't covered in blood as he had been at the first vet check. And he only took one skewer to the shoulder.

A couple of times towards the end where the trail was wider, Roo and I trotted up level with Fergus who craned his neck around to Roo and gave him a dirty look. I think Roo's glow-sticks were messing with his night vision, so after that we stayed behind.

We came back through the jeepers campground (that felt a little surreal... "Good evening!" [nonchalant-casual, like we always ride around in the pitch black at 10 pm]), and finally started up out of the canyon. Roo got in front after Fergus took his final wrong turn (took the down trail instead of the up one) and was marching along purposefully. My knees were screaming from so much walking on the trail, and about half a mile from the finish we both got off because we couldn't stand it any longer. Hobbling along behind Roo, I realised that—wow—this horse can *really* walk out when he wants to - he was striding along as fast as I've ever seen him.

We did get back on again (safer than tripping in the dark, plus pft's past injuries don't allow for much speed walking - there's a reason we got him a great big horse so he doesn't have to get off much) and, lured by the lights of Dayton, made it back to camp just about when they were starting to think about sending out a search party for us.

Too blotto to take good notes, I believe both horses got great vet scores at the finish. Roo and Fergus have both now completed the second leg of the NASTR Triple Crown (although pft says he has no interest in doing VC100). And Fergus looked amazing - a walk in the park for him. Tevis 2014 here we come!

Pones got put up in front of their hay bags, detacked and blanketed. Yanked on their Equisleeve socks (pft helped me with Fergus, since his feet are huge and it's a real struggle to get the socks over them - plus he's never terribly cooperative when it comes to pulling them up and insists on waving his leg around).

Ride management had saved us a plate of supper, but I was really too queasy to do more than pick at the melon (Robinson Flat vet check style), although I think pft ate more. Finally, once the pones were sorted out, I did munch my way through a load of ham.

And we were done.

---

I was impossibly proud of Roo who'd done such a great job all day. I'd spent the entire previous week fretting about how he wouldn't be able to comfortably keep up with Fergus all day and that he'd be struggling at the end - not. He took it all in his stride and never acted like he was in over his head.

Photo: Diana Hiesalu-Bain

So very proud of my small grey pone

And Fergus proved once again what an amazing horse he is.

---

Things I discovered along the way:

• Roo really can keep up with Fergus and move out when he wants to without his legs falling off.
• And he can walk fast when he's sufficiently motivated. 
• If the glue sets up before it gets put on the horse's foot, the glue-on will fall off. But I knew that anyway. Pleased that that particular boot lasted 20 miles and very happy that that was our only loss.
• If you walk that much, Roo's back will suffer from baldness and some edema. Evidently my pad setup still needs some serious work. 
• Fergus' pad setup, OTOH, appears to be dialled in. Apart from some odd heat bumps (like small peas under the skin), he finished looking good. 
• Not having to put boots on the morning of a ride is a Good Thing.
• pft and I riding together is a bad combination to make time. Neither of us are motivated when we get the bleahs. We need a secret weapon of a third rider to get in front so that we may follow in that blind, miserable "must we?" fashion that gets you places far faster than you would under your own steam.
• pft and I riding together is a bad combination because we're too close to each other and pick up on each other's moods - so if one gets negative, the other does too. 
• I am very proud of pft for doing so well at this ride. There were some problems, but overall he did a great job and his riding is improving in leaps and bounds. 
• Although he said he'd never do this again, I bet he will ;)
  
  

Pre-NASTR 75 - In Which I Glue 274 Feet

Today was Gluing Day - never my favorite. I opted to work from home so I could glue without a time limit or without it getting dark (which is what usually happens. Gluing in daylight isn't fun. In the dark, even less so). This means working until midnight to get my real work done, but at least I could glue in peace.

Fergus's new size 3s arrived within two days earlier this week, averting that mini-crisis. And I'd bought a spare tube of Adhere from the Sierra Saddlery* in Auburn last weekend (*think they are called something else now, since the farrier-supply and the saddlery part seem to have split into two separate businesses - the farrier-supply is now in the warehouse in the back and, although isn't open on a Saturday, the saddlery-lady kindly was able to ring me up) so we were set for glue.

Wednesday evening after dashing home from the tooth torturer orthodontist, Roo got his pre-glue pedicure.I haven't booted him a lot in back this year, and have probably been generally less aggressive about how I trim to leave more foot for completely barefoot riding. I've been letting Fergus and Roo self-trim more, which has resulted in stronger feet.

The secondary result is that although Roop's been wearing 0.5s in front and 0s in the back for about a year now, these boots are actually stretched and not necessarily the perfect size for gluing (i.e. I wouldn't be able to squeeze on a brand-new shell + glue in those sizes). So when it came to choosing glue-ons for him, he was comfortably an 0.5 in the back, and his larger front foot fit better into a size 1.

Now that we're done with gluing (sneak preview), I'd say that using a 0.5 Wide would probably be better for him, as the size 1 is a little longer, front to back, than it needs to be (but an 0.5 would not have fit).

The 0.5s glue-one in the back are perfect.

* * *

From past experience of glue setting up too fast on a warm day, all the shells and glues were safely stored in a big cooler in the nice-n-cool basement prior to gluing. The two shells I used for dry-fitting got slightly soiled, so I had pft wash them with hot soapy water beforehand. 'Course they didn't come out completely dry, so then we had to set them in the sun to obliterate any moisture - after which they were hot, hot, hot, so I had to go and put them in the fridge to get them cold again. Even once we were gluing, all the shells stayed in the cooler until it was time to apply the glue. I have become OCD about having cold materials.

Spent the morning doing the hoof-prep. The horses' hooves are currently coated in concrete-like mud - the only way to get it off was scrutch down on the ground and painstakingly scrape at it with the side of the hoofpick. Once the worst was off, I could lightly rasp off the top coat of hoof for a really clean wall and scrape cross-hatching onto the surface to give the glue something to grip.

Hoof-prep complete, horses happy in front of their hay bags.

Our plan of attack was for me to do the squeezing of the glue, and for pft to pick up and clean off any remaining debris from the hoof (our "cleanest" flat area for gluing is still dust-covered, despite multiple sweepings). Once the glue was in the shell, I'd switch positions with him, jamming the boot on and he'd pick up the opposite foot for the few minutes needed to keep the horse still for curing. The only snag with this plan of attack was that by boot #7, my gun-hand was starting to give out and really didn't want to squeeze any more. Wimp hand R us.

*  *  *

Roo got done first and we did that size 1 as our first effort. Probably didn't put enough glue in to thoroughly fill out the bigger toe, and still need to rasp an aggressive breakover into the toe (the size 1 was an old leftover boot from gluing Uno's backs in 2010 - this was before Easycare changed their toe-design to be more bevelled) - not thrilled with how this boot went on and therefore select this one for the "Fail"* during Sunday's 75 (*you have to have at least one boot-application that you don't love).

The other boots went on with no swearing and several smiles (< gasp > - unheard of).

Roo's feetses. You can see the difference in the breakover
of the size 1 (on right of the pic) and 0.5 (left). Need to take
a rasp to that toe before the ride.

I also don't love him cocking that right rear like that -
that's his overused leg and he should be spanked
for making me look at him doing it. During the time he
was tied waiting to be glued, he managed to get his head
under the lead rope and startled when I arrived with
the wheelie-cooler full off booting materials. This caused
him to have a minor panic-attack and scramble around,
nearly sitting down in the process. He didn't appear to
have done any damage, but his back legs made some
interesting scrape marks in the rubber mats.

Don't think about it, Lucy.

Once Roo was done, we got ready to glue Bigfoot. Before starting, it occurred to me to check how much Adhere was left in the tube (wow! thinking ahead! this is from the person who during a previous gluing session, sat there frustratingly squeezing on the gun with nothing coming out, thinking the glue had set up... only to discover the tube was actually empty). There was only a inch left, so rather than use that up and have to speedily switch out an Adhere tube mid-boot, we opted to start a completely new tube.

And this is where things started to go wrong.

For some reason, this tube set up much faster than the previous one. So half-way through applying the glue to Fergus' first size 3 boot (which, being a big boot, requires quite a bit of time to smear all the necessary glue in), I realised to my horror that one side was already nearly set up. I dashed to the horse and smooshed the shell on - twisting it hard to break the skin on the hardening-glue and hopefully getting a seal. This boot looks awful - the glue on the left (medial) side is totally blobby, so the boot wall sticks out about 1/4". Luckily the right (lateral) side glued beautifully, so after staring at it for a minute or so, I decided to just go with it (the alternative was to try and get the boot off and clean it off - at this stage, a virtual impossibility). It looks awful, but, surprisingly, I think it might actually hold (famous last words).

pft dashed into the house and fetched a cooler full of ice and we put the glue-n-gun into that for the remaining boots.

Fergus' smart boots. The RF (left on this pic) is the "funky"
glue-on, although it doesn't look too bad in this pic. I expect
he'll manage to hook the adjacent foot onto the lip of the
sticky-out boot while going along, and rip it off.

Boots #2 and #3 went on very nicely, so I figured we'd solved the speed-set up with the cooling effects of the ice.

Not so. While gluing boot #4 (a size 2 for the back), the same thing happened - I was finishing off applying the glue to the second half of boot #4 and realised the first half was already hardened up. ARGGGG. But gold star for quick thinking - I ripped out that strip of hardened glue and quickly applied a third half of glue to the boot and jammed it on the foot. Surprisingly, this boot seemed to go on fine despite the problems (again, famous last words).

We shall see.

Both pft and I carry a full complement of Gloves (with gaiters) anyway (have boot baggies either side of the back of the saddle where they don't get in the way but are handy if needed) and in theory, if Fergus loses a boot, none of the glue will have stuck to his hoof, so getting a normal boot on will be relatively easy (instead of the nightmare scenario of the boot coming off, leaving a 1/8" of glue on the hoofwall, meaning no usual-sized boot is ever going on that foot. There's a rasp in my crew box for precisely this purpose - removing excess glue to get a boot on properly).

* * *

But the real mystery is - why was that second tube of Adhere different in its curing time? The first tube (the one that behaved) was the one I bought in Auburn last weekend, while the misbehaving tube was one I'd bought for Roo for 20 Mule Team (back in February - ended up not going to the ride). So I concluded it must be an older tube.

Checked the lot numbers on the two tubes, and they are from exactly the same batch. Huh.

The (bad) 20MT tube has been stored in a box in my front hall since February. Admittedly not climate-controlled, but not baking either. But I doubt the Sierra Farrier Supply place (in the warehouse) is any better climate-controlled than my house for the (good) tube, so I can't believe it's related to recent storage.

Maybe the difference was that it took longer to smear glue in to Fergus' big size 2 and 3 boots - and he was glued second, so the temperature had gone up by then? It was in the high-80sF by the time we were done. < shrug >.

So, all in all, not too bad. Having plenty of unlimited time really helped not feeling angst-filled, even when things went wrong (witness the lack of swearing). Still don't know the answer to keeping the glue cool - except for maybe having an ice pack to rest it on during even short pauses.

pft tweaked on my Adhere-glue-gun a little the other night and it seems to have straightened it out a bit - it the trigger part of the handle wasn't bouncing back the way it should, making it so that I had to squeeze, then manually release it, which really didn't help with my gluing-enthusiasm. Having a glue-gun that works is much better... even if your hand is too wimpy to squeeze it after 7 boots-worth of glue in quick succession.

Other than horse stuff, nothing else is packed yet, so we still have plenty of things to do before we can leave in the morning. But we're getting there. Woo!

Off to do my real work.

Pre-NASTR 75 - In Which I Fret About the Ride

NASTR 75 is next weekend and although I'm feeling good about how Roo feels after last weekend's 30 mile training ride, I'm stressing about the ride a little more than I'd realised.

There are several things going on:

Early Rising and Getting Out There:

Last week I read that the ride starts at 5 a.m. Visions of trying to get pft, me, Fergus, and Roo ready in time (not to mention sorting Finn out) makes me nervous, as does the concept of probably having to get up at 3:30 a.m. I just don't do well at 'organizing' that early in the morning and the thought of it gives me a bad tummy. ('course I know that, once on the horse and going along, I'll be fine - but I've got to get there first).

Horse Footwear

I thought I had a plan for this, but the more I thought about it, the less good a plan it seemed to be. Here's the basics:

Fergus does fine in strap-on boots (provided I put him in boots that hadn't reached their sell-by date several months ago and are super-stretched and baggy) - has no problems with gaiter-rubbing, but he *really* does well with cushioning. He trots along fine on hard-packed terrain, but just *flies* as soon as you put him in soft footing. So my plan was to put him in Easyboot Gloves and cushion the underside with sikaflex sole pack.

Roo, OTOH, tends to get gaiter rubs on the front of his pasterns where the two edges overlap, so I figured I'd use the set of glue-ons that I ordered for him for 20 Mule Team 100 (which we didn't go to), and also cushion him with sikaflex.

The problem with this plan was when exactly was I going to glue the two separate horses? I had vague ideas of doing Roo one evening during the week prior to the ride, then popping Fergus in his boots on Saturday afternoon and pumping them full of sikaflex through holes in the underside. And then I thought about the reality of this plan. About how, despite other people's experiences, mine were that, as soon as you opened the tube of sikaflex you had to use it all up because next time you tried to extract the screwdriver you'd jammed in the opening, it will have set up solid.

After a txt-discussion with a friend on Friday morning, she suggested that if I wanted pft to have a hassle-free ride and wanted to reduce my angst, I should probably glue both horses.

Yesterday I checked and found I have shells for Fergus, but knew that a single tube of Adhere was not going to be enough to glue eight feet - especially when four of them are Fergus' (he wears size 2.5s on front and 1.5 or 2s on the back). So off we went on Saturday to the farrier supply in Auburn and picked up a second tube of Adhere.

I'll still have to glue the eight feet one evening next week, but will trim them up today (Sunday) and make sure everything fits well.

Update since writing the above:

This afternoon I trimmed Fergus and discovered that, whilst I can fit 2.5s on his front feet and that's what he'd wear in Gloves, in reality, trying to glue on 2.5s is going to end in tears. They need to be whacked carefully to get them to seat properly and are really tight. Not going to work well with the extra space glue takes up. Urk. I have shells in 2.5 and 2... but no 3s. Hence will be calling around Monday morning to find somewhere that can guarantee to get a pair of 3s to me by Thursday.

The extra expense of needing to buy things that I thought I had covered is not great. But let's face it, any expense right now is not great. To do this thing right I'm digging deep into my "ride slush fund". Guilt R us.

Update since writing the above (I can't write this stuff as fast as things change):

Poked around online and it looks like Long Rider's Gear have two remaining size 3 glue-ons in stock, so I just ordered them in the hope that they'll send them out first thing Monday. I've had good luck ordering from this store in the past and they were very speedy. Which probably means this time around my package will get send to Grass Valley instead of Garden Valley (yes, this has happened in the past) and will take an extra three days to get here.

Pft's First 75:

This will be pft's first foray into anything over 50 miles and I so want him to have a good experience. I'm not him, so I can't make it work for him, but I can offer support and suggestions.

One thing we discovered at NV Derby is that although Roo can match Fergus' "easy trot" pace, it's not something I particularly felt he ought to be doing, so I was often asking pft to ease up a bit. This meant that he got more beaten up than usual trying to keep Fergus off Roo's red line.

Which leaves me with the dilemma. Do I send them off on their own? Or do I ride with them?

Plan A 

was to send pft and Fergus off on their own so he could pace appropriately for them. That's not to say that overall they'd get there any faster than us - but when they were moving out, they'd be moving a lot faster than me and Roo (who does much better in the long run if I can get him to a steady slow continuous trot). That was my plan when I had KT, Funder, Angela or Aurora as potential riding buddies. Unfortunately, all four of them are now out for various reasons - which would mean finding someone else who's style is slow and steady. Not that many of them around.

Whilst I've met some lovely people and spent a fun day riding with complete strangers, I've also had some really awful experiences when you get in that weird situation where you end up riding with someone who doesn't really want you there, but you're stuck riding with them the entire day because they're going the same speed as you. They usually have their own riding buddy (so, again, don't want you around) and end up ignoring you, or making it generally crunchy at water troughs, etc. Have no desire to do that for 75 miles.

Roo doesn't like riding alone and needs a buddy, so I'd either have to find a willing partner pre-ride, or not go that route at all.

Plan B

I think Roo can actually keep up with Fergus fine, so right now I'm aiming for Plan B which is to just ride with pft and Fergus and it'll all work out. Roo may go a little faster than perhaps I'm comfortable with towards the end of the first loop when you can move out, but he's been training with Fergus all year, so it won't be unreasonable for him to go F's speed. Plus Fergus should be nicely settled by Loop 2.

Unfortunately I then started thinking about the very end - the last few miles of the ride when you generally walk in, lit by the streetlights of Dayton in the distance. Roo and I did the ride in 2007 and he got pretty crunchy in those last miles - even had some strange rear end muscle spasm thing in the last half mile which *really* freaked me out. But come on Lucy, that was *seven* years ago...

But I still got to thinking about how nice and big Fergus can walk - particularly at the end being lured in by the promise of the trailer. I don't think I want Roo jog-trotting the last three miles of the ride, which is what he'll have to do to keep up. Hum. Maybe I'll be speed-hand-walking the last three miles in. Awk. That's going to be a hard end to a long day.

Triple Crown:

Some things are fun. Some things are hard. And some things are fun because they are hard. If you manage to achieve a goal you set yourself, there's no better high. Unfortunately, before the high (even if things look good), you still have to suffer nerves and worry - precisely because your goal is harder than the average activity.

This year I've set myself two goals - finish Triple Crown with Roo and finish Tevis with Fergus. Both, I think, are attainable. But both could equally go the way of the toilet if things don't go as planned and hoped.

If NASTR 75 was just another ride, I'd start it and just see where it took us - and if it didn't work out, then, oh well, it didn't work out (but I probably learned a ton in the process). But because of wanting the Triple Crown goal to work with Roo, I really want to finish this 75 - and I want to finish it in good shape - not finish it by the skin of our teeth. I want my worries about Roo not being "up for longer distances" (based on past performances of over five years ago) to prove unfounded and for him to take it in his stride as I suspect he actually can. But only by trying will I find out.

And I really want pft and Fergus to finish - pft because he could really use a bright spot in his life right now, and Fergus because doing the 75 is an integral part of his (what right now isn't quite where I want it) Tevis training.

So I guess I made this bed for myself, and now I get to sleep in it :)

Management:

NASTR isn't a super-hard ride in terms of climbing, but it's got a lot of fiddly stuff on it and a lot of varied terrain to figure out how best to get through - and it's still 75 miles. You have to manage the horse sensibly and balance not going too fast with moving out as much as possible on the trottable sections.

The coolest thing about this ride is discovering that horses can actually trot over rocks without falling over or laming themselves - particularly in the dark. You start the ride tip-toeing over every rocky stretch (of which there are many for miles on the first and last loops as you work your way through the riverbeds in the bottom of El Dorado and Illinois canyons), and by then end you just let them get on with it and are astonished to find that - huh - they're actually quite good at it.

Having finished the ride three times before (and had one pull with Uno in 2010), I know the ups and downs pretty well, so can coach pft appropriately (get him to eat pick-me-up items when things start to lag).

Loop 1: cheery
Loop 2: start cheery, enjoy the fun parts, and then gradually slide into the bleahs before disappearing into them completely on the last miles and miles slog into the vet check ("it'll be just over the next rise!... Ok, it'll be just over the *next* rise.... well, allright then, the *next* one...")
Loop 3: wish you could take an afternoon nap and feel generally unmotivated to do more than trudge
Loop 4: horses perk up, it cools off, you are sucked towards the finish by a mysterious forcefield only felt by horses heading towards their trailers.

The trick is to get through those middle two loops.

And the trick will be getting Roop to the finish without him pooping out or getting crunchy. This will only be the fourth time he's gone over 50 miles, and although he finished the 75 and a 100 (got pulled at Tevis at 65 miles), he's not a super-horse and I wouldn't say finished those longer distance rides "seamlessly". That said, I've finished many more miles in the interim, am more experienced and wiser than I was for those previous times, so in theory can manage him better, right Lucy?

p.s. My fingers look like hell from continuously chewing on them.

Mission Accomplished!

All three of our Skito pads currently in action (ignoring the two retired ones) are looking a little long in the tooth - worn around the edges and on their second or third set of internal foam shims. I don't know when we acquired the Dryback Skito pad, but that became the firm favorite and as a result the underside "fluff" isn't anymore:

Poor Roo suffered the effects of this and finished up NV Derby much balder in the corresponding location than he had been before the ride (probably just as well we had to cancel 20 Mule Team 100 or he would have been down to skin):

Time to do something.

• Inspect prices of replacement Skito Dryback... $295. Urk. Not going to happen right now.
• Consider the barely-used, misshapen Coolback pad. Hmm, still misshapen and weird.
• Inspect the other two Skitos... not really going to help, they are hardly what you'd consider "fluffy" on the underside either.

So I took another look at that Coolback. I owned one years ago that stood me in good stead for several years until I switched to a different saddle footprint. After moving away from short-at-the-sides and long-along-the-spine Bob Marshall treeless saddles, the elderly Coolback no longer fit my new saddle. So I bought a new Coolback to fit my new Sensation saddle. Spiffy and plush it was when it arrived. And then the center seam tore within a few uses. :(

I complained bitterly to Long Riders Gear who, bless them, had me send it back and sent me a replacement. The replacement looked fine when it arrived but within one washing there was something a bit funky about it. Within two washes it was so misshapen that it no longer sat under the saddle properly - to get the two sides to meet meant that the spine seam was totally crooked. It was all off-kilter and I stopped using it in disgust, too demoralised to complain a second time (more fool me).

But there it sat, all plush and unloved.

Plush.

I looked at the underside of the Skito and a plan began to form. What if I took the two pads apart – in their current state, neither was useable – and spliced them together? Shouldn't be too hard, eh?

I started by ripping the Coolback apart. That took me all of about 15 minutes - just ran the seam ripper around the edge and voila - two pad's worth of fluffy undersides! How much do they charge for these things?!? Can you say "Rip off?".

And then I took a closer look at the inside of what I had. No wonder the pad was so misshapen - it was cut totally on the bias - that's to say that the direction of the fabric was diagonal to the direction of the pad, which meant that as it stretched, it would do so in bizarre directions. No kidding.

The pink line shows the centerline of the Coolback pad.
The grimy underside of the Skito shows the direction the fabric is supposed to go.

The Skito took a lot longer to take apart. A LOT longer. These things are *Fabricated*. For one thing, it had three seams along the back, gros-grain ribbon to reinforce certain seams (had to be removed without damage since I was going to reuse it), as well as a piece of trim that went all the way around the edge, which covered yet another seam where they'd serged the front and back together, and then the velcro billet straps were also sewn all the way through. A week later, I was still picking seams and liberally covered in horse hair.

Finally, I got it apart:

Taking a deep breath, and measuring twice to make sure I wasn't about to cut it out backwards (have done this twice before cutting out tights legs - you can only see if you really stare at them), I used the Skito underside as a pattern to cut out the new pad bottom (on the squiff, to follow the fabric direction).

(I was hoping to get two pad's worth out of this Coolback so I could perform the same surgery on my second-baldest pad, but alas, to get the fabric to be straight, I had to cut in such a way that there wasn't really enough leftover afterwards... unless I decide to patch the Skito. Have to take a look at what I've got and see if it can be done without leaving a nasty ridgey-seam that, given Roo's delicateness, would wear a hole in the his back in one ride).

My first problem was discovering that even my work-horse Juki sewing machine wasn't competent enough to sew through two layers of plush sheep fleece, so I had to sew the spine seam by hand. I hate hand-sewing anything. <sigh>

The next part was sewing the gros-grain ribbon along the spine to cover the edges of the two over-folded sides. I persuaded the sewing machine to cooperate provided I sewed each stitch by hand-cranking the wheel and moving the fabric along by hand, while wiggling the needle back into correct position - quicker than hand-sewing, but only marginally.

Around this time I realised with great cheer what the problem was. Most recently I'd been using the sewing machine for free-motion quilting (sliding the quilt around under the sewing machine to make swirly patterns) and, as such, the feed dogs (the teethy part that sticks up to grab the fabric and pull it along) were dropped down out of sight. No wonder it wouldn't feed the fabric properly. By the turn of a knob I was back in business. Yay.

After that, it was still a struggle to get the sewing machine to gobble along the seams, but at least it considered it instead of sulking.

Because sewing machines are temperamental by nature, it still ate a lot of stitching on the underside (the part you can't see, so don't know it's happening until the machine seizes up solid with a rather nasty noise), requiring patient thread-yanking from the entrails of the sewing machine with needle-nosed pliers and a headlight, more seam ripping, picking out pieces of thread from places they didn't belong, but I got it to sew the next few seams fairly quickly.

The pad has a peaked wither area (the front of the pad) so that required some fiddling to match and make sure I didn't mess up. And some giant safety pins came in handy to hold the pieces together. The Coolback fabric was stretchier than it's predecessor, so I still ended up trimming an inch or so off in places as stretched as we went along.

By 1 a.m.on Saturday night, I was on the edge trim - minimum problem there, if you discount having to sew it twice because I can't hold it in place and "sew nice" at the same time.

Around 1:30 a.m. I was sewing the velcro-along the foam-insert-pocket opening.

Around 1:45 a.m. I was unpicking that velcro after realising I'd just sewn two strips of loop-velcro against each other, instead of a strip of hook-velcro.

And by 2:30 a.m. I was resewing the velcro-billet straps back in place.

And then it was done. Woot!

It's not perfect, but given what I was working with, I'm pretty proud of myself for getting it done. The mistakes made won't impact the wearing and Roo shall have a plush fluffy pad to wear for NASTR 75 in four weeks' time:

Yay me.

Of New and Old - Dogs and Chooks and Cats

Dogs
Yesterday pft finished planting Chili Dog's memorial chinese pistache tree - and it looks wonderful. Admittedly, Chili left us nearly a year ago, but things take time in our house. The pistache tree will glow in the fall and I'll be able to sit on my bed and put my socks on while zoning out, looking at it (I can already sit on my bed and put on my socks while zoning out, but don't have anything specific to look at so this will be a better excuse).

pft was appropriately abetted by Chili's successor, Finn Dog, who is always willing to help in any way he can. Other than his tendency to pick things up and take them off to his lair, Finn Dog has very little in common with Chili. He is pft's dog, for sure, is small enough to fit on the bed (albeit heavily when he lies on your legs or hogs the covers)(come to think of it, he always hogs the covers), and fluffy to hug and pat and scritchel. He is also blessed with an air dog nature - can leap and bounce without any interference from gravity. And he's a very happy dog. I still miss my Chili Dog all the time, but Finn is a good #2 option.

Chooks

Our current chook quota (up until last weekend) was 8 - a flock of rooster + three free-roaming outdoor hens; and a flock of four closed-up, non-roaming hens. 

Indoor

Two of the indoor hens are from the ill-fated attack last year, resulting in mother and hatching-eggs/chicks being decimated down to one healthy chick and its unhealthy, twisted-leg sibling. These two, Willy and Wonky were destined never to live a life of freedom - not least because Wonky moves around by slithering (although she does a fine job), can't perch and can't fly. 

I figured that if I had to keep "indoor chooks" (they live in the large chicken house next to the horse paddocks), I might as well also get some of the type of chooks that I love but can't usually keep because they get eaten rather quickly - cochins, frizzles, etc. To avoid predators, any outdoor free-roaming chooks need to rely on their quick-wits and flying ability to get up into the trees/up on the barn roof, etc. Predators visit with dismaying regularity once they realise there are two-legged snacks shuffling around in our yard - and large, bad-at-flying, non-jungle fowl-type chickens tend to not do well in this situation and become coyote meals within a matter of weeks. So Willy and Wonky have two cochins for friends. The biggest cochin is like a large fluffy basketball who is fun to pick up and carry around. Frizzles (aka chooks that look like feather dusters) are slated for future arrival, but all in good time.

The good thing about captive chooks is they only have limited places to lay eggs - and in a chook house I can actually find them. So for once we're getting a regular supply of about three eggs a day. The egg mountain is growing in the fridge - currently five dozen in there.

Lynn, who was surrogate mother to Willy and Wonky when we were on vacation last September, was terribly worried that Wonky would get picked on by the other chooks. As it turns out, Wonky's fine (if you ignore her tendency to get wrapped up in baling string, thereby hog-tying herself to parts of her enclosure), but I realised the other day that the aforementioned biggest cochin is pecking on Willy and so her current living situation isn't working. Currently I let her out every morning so that she can gradually integrate with the outdoor flock. She is sufficiently jungle-fowl alike that this should work out. This morning the rooster sidled up to her, amorously. She flew up on the fence, so has figured out escape tactics. It shouldn't be too long before she can live outdoor full-time.

Sebright hen, three peepers, and their new
in-the-process-of-hatching sibling 

Outdoor

The outdoor chooks, as mentioned, consist of the twins (identical chooks), a golden sebright hen, and an old english silver duckwing bantie rooster.  The rooster is a good guy - looks after his flocklet and has only committed one indiscretion attacking pft when we think he felt threatened by a sudden quick movement. Otherwise, he's very benign.

The outdoor chooks sleep up in a tree at night and for the last year or so, the three hens have been laying "somewhere" but I had never figured out where, so despite having chooks, we never got any eggs. And then about three weeks ago the golden sebright hen disappeared. We figured she'd come to a bad end - until we found her up in the hanging bucket (scene of the crime of Willy and Wonky's birth) sitting on 14 eggs. Excellent!

This last weekend, the first three peepers hatched out. Mother, peepers, and remaining eggs were moved to the chook crêche (cage approx 24" W  x 24" H x 50" L). This keeps them safe while allowing the babbies to run about and commune with the outdoor flock. Which in turn means flock integration goes smoothly when the time comes for them to be let out into the world because they've been looking at each other through the wire for the last couple of months. 

This morning a fourth peeper was
hatching as I left for work. Too cool.

In the meantime, one of the twin hens decided she wanted to sit too. Unfortunately, she chose to do so on the hay trailer - on top of the continually diminishing hay bales. Last weekend she got moved to a small cage to keep her safe (the raccoon or skunk that patrols the barn would surely find her on the hay trailer sooner or later). Since she was only sitting on two eggs, I even had the bright idea to add a couple of cochin eggs to her pile - if she was going to spend the time sitting, she might as well do it for more than two and I'd get more cochins. Yay.

Apparently my "bright" idea wasn't... since the cochins never come anywhere near the rooster, unless they're blessed with immaculate conception, I doubt we'll be getting any cochin babies out of those unfertilized eggs. Not bright, me. So I gave them to Finn to eat this morning (after having spent two weeks under a warm chicken, it seemed the best place for them to go. He was pleased). I'm hoping her remaining two* eggs hurry up - think they have another week or so to cook - so I can just stuff them under the sebright and they can all be brought up together. 

(* Have a sneaking suspicion that one of these eggs might be a decoy that I also stole from the indoor chooks to encourage the outdoor chooks to continue laying in that location. As such, this hen might actually just be sitting on one viable egg. What a waste of time.)

Cats

All good things come to an end, and my favorite bed cat, Mumma Cat, is finally winding down and won't be with us too much longer. By our calculations, she's about 18-19 years old and up until last month was pretty sprightly. This last week she's really taken a downward turn so now all we can do is let her lie on us in bed and make her last few days as comfy as possible. I am very sad.

This morning she took a curious stroll outside. I'm not sure exactly what she had in mind, since she's mostly an indoor cat (bad hips) so seldom goes outside. She was wandering down the driveway and then looked like she was considering going in the culvert under the driveway (the culvert where the resident skunk hangs out). Bad idea. I blocked the entrance with a piece of wood and she sat there for a while. pft tells me that she finally came back inside the house in the afternoon. She's earned her right to do whatever she wants at this point (except for disappearing into the culvert... it's just a bad idea on so many levels).