Ice: the perfect free spirit, now four years in the wind.

Photo copyright Aji, 2021; all rights reserved.

Today is always a terrible day.

Ten-thirty this morning marked the fourth anniversary (four years! how did it get to be four years?) since Ice left us. He didn't want to go. But we had to help him do it, because there was no chance of recovery, and the pain would soon have been unbearable.

He showed up in the general area in December of 2013, having materialized out of precisely nowhere a few days before Christmas. Just before sundown on Christmas Eve, he crossed over onto our side through a downed section of fence . . . and never left. We put the word out, but no one ever claimed him, so he just . . . stayed.

He was my beautiful mustang boy, a high-stepping horse of many names and an indomitable spirit, even when he showed up here, starved, apparently abandoned, even when a hidden case of sand colic tried to take him for us the following spring. The vet took me aside and warned me privately that it was unlikely to have a good outcome; it was a 75+-pound mass, years in the making, and the bowel was already compromised. 

He made a liar out of her. Oh, it took work: days and weeks and months of work, and IV hydration and meds and the endless, endless walking on a lead, circles upon circles in the hot May sun, but we did it. He had a couple of subsequent small episodes, but the vet had also agreed that he might be passing small amounts of sand for the rest of his life. Either way, we were prepared to deal with it, and we did.

And he finally had the herd he'd so obviously always wanted. He was so happy, if still traumatized by his past; gelded, but clearly something had gone terribly wrong, most probably a complete lack of any anaesthetic or subsequent pain relief, and he would not let anyone near his back end. Fortunately, his hind hooves were perpetually short and solid, and even his forehooves didn't need much work. 

I had begun, very, very slowly, putting my jackets on his back just to get him adjusted to the idea of something there. I had intended one day to ride him, this high-stepping warrior boy with the flawless natural gait.

But something else got there first.

The colic recurred on August 3rd or 4th of 2017. The reason for the colic was a tumor that had, unbeknownst to us, already been present when he showed up here and growing all that time. It had finally reached that terrible magic point where it forced a full torsion of the bowel, and there was no return from the compromising of its wall. He was ready to try; he was my tough guy, after all. But it wasn't even a slim chance. The only chance was of prolonged agony for him, and we weren't willing to do that.

So we made the hardest of hard decisions, and my heart tore in half, and it has never healed. He's buried out where Cree, and now Shade, too, are, in the shadow of a field full of wild sunflowers. And I miss him every single day. At 10:30 this morning, I went out there, as I always do, with cedar and tobacco . . . and I put a few of the bright yellow blossoms next to the stone, too.

I don't see him in the flowers so much as I feel him in the wind. He was that kind of horse, Ice: the perfect free spirit, now four years in the wind.

We love you, Ice. You still run across our hearts.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.                                

Blue, But Shade Is Three Years Gone

Photo copyright Wings, 2021; all rights reserved.

Most of the sky is once again blue, but Shade is three years gone. 

That was her full name, Shade In the Blue, but we mostly just called her Shade. Also Monster, Brat, Butthead, and occasionally, You Bitch, all affectionately if exasperatedly. Shade was a monster, and she loved every minute of it. She'd as soon kick you in the ass as look at you, and to her it was all fun and games, but of the distinctly dominant sort. She was Cree's daughter, and Cree was the only one capable of keeping her in her place.

We loved her anyway.

That up there was her in better days, in March of 2015 to be exact, when the sun was starting to warm the earth again and their winter coats were getting itchy and they spent as much time as possible rolling in the dirt. It would only be another three years that we'd have her with us, although we had no way of knowing it at the time; the local equine cancer cluster hadn't begun claiming lives from our herd yet, but she would become the third in a very quick row.

But on that July day three years ago, we knew. She could barely stand; it took everything she had to follow us out to the field where her resting place would be. The cancer had shot through her system with astonishing rapidity, and only the love between her and Miskwaki, I'm convinced, had kept her going that long. And Miskwaki, having then lost his entire herd, literally wept for her; if you've never heard a horse cry, I hope you never have to do so. It'll tear your heart in two.

A friend helped, because no one whose job it was could be bothered. It was 4:45 PM on that day when we sent her on her journey to join her mother and her beloved Ice in the sky. And this evening, albeit a little late, Wings and I went out to her resting place to give her some cedar and some smoke, some water and tobacco.

I promised him I would always do that for our animals. Sometimes, he does it with me.

But she was in such distress that I prefer to remember her as she was in the photo above: alive and lively, engaged and thoroughly insolent, always getting into trouble or raising hell somehow. I miss her wild indomitable spirit. We love you, Shade. Your fierce and beautiful spirit still lives in our hearts.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.                                                  

Four years since Cree left us to race across the sky.

Photo copyright Aji, 2021; all rights reserved.

It's impossible to believe that it's been four years since Cree left us to race across the sky. I took that photo when there was still a sliver hope, just. Deep down, I think all three of us knew already. And it would be only a few more hours, as it turned out.

And much as the image breaks my heart, the truth is that Cree had defied all the odds as it was. Wings rescued her, although he didn't know it then, from a place where they had absolutely no idea that she was laminitic, nor would they have had the faintest idea what to do for it (or have bothered). He thought he was getting a perfectly sound horse, and, in fact, she did okay for a while.

The laminitis made itself known soon enough. But in her case, it wasn't just laminitis; it became full-fledged founder. Climate change contributed to its worsening, and the acceleration thereof; foundered horses often develop Cushings (she did), and also experience high rates of colic, including weather-related ones (which she also did). But she was the matriarch of our then more substantial herd, and she was NOT ready to leave.

We went through so much with her: changes in diet, changes in meds, soaking, padding, wrapping, taping, clogging; on one memorable late afternoon in the middle of a blizzard, we backed her hind end into Wings's studio to do it. Her flares got longer and longer; her remissions shorter and shorter. And then, at the end of 2015, if memory serves, the news became very bad indeed: What had a been a partial rotation in her left front was now a full rotation in both front legs; her coffin bones had gone right through her soles.

Time was, that was a death sentence, and a pretty instant one, too. But we had had to learn more about this complex of equine conditions than most vets bother to know, and over the years, we had become fairly expert. Our vet had, too. And where everyone else assessed only one option, our vet was willing to work with us trying to rebuild her soles. 

It was a hell of a lot of work. Backbreaking work. But she had made it clear that she was not ready to go, and if she was willing to put in the work, so were we. And we helped her rebuild more than a solid inch of new sole on each front hoof. Nothing short of miraculous.

In the end, it wasn't the founder that did it. There is a cancer cluster in this area, one that affects both horses and dogs, and she was one of the casualties. What we did not know then was that a tumor was developing somewhere along her spine, impinging on the nerves in her hindquarters.

And in February of 2017, its development hit that point where it became irrecoverable.

She had no pain, as far as we could tell. It was probably mostly numbness. But we knew, at the moment that photo was taken, that the next time she went down, she would not get back up. It happened about 6:50 PM that night. 

Normally, I go out to the animals' resting places at the same time of day as they left us (sometimes, we both go). I take their spirits an offering: cedar, tobacco, a little water, sometimes a little food. I knew today that it would have to be early. On that night in 2017, the weather was unseasonably warm, and at 6:50 PM we were also sheltered inside the stall. Her resting place is in the south field, which today is beneath several inches of rapidly-icing snow in this bitter cold. I would never find it in the dark, and would not be able to withstand the cold anyway. I came too close to following her a few months later, and the cold affects me now in ways it never did then.

So tonight, I went out just before sundown. It was beautiful: clear and crisp and cold, bands of iridescent clouds trailing across the southwest sky. I took her a little hay with the rest at Wings's request. And SunDog, named for the light in the sky, came with me, as though he knew somehow; our wild boy trotted ahead, blazing a pawprint trail in the snow, then sat and waited patiently from three feet away.

Miskwaki missed her terribly. I think he still does. I know we do; she was, as I said earlier, the matriarch, the boss, the badass of the herd that no one dared defy too much. There's still a void, but at the same time, I see her in the stars, especially on these cold clear winter nights, without pain and running free, with her daughter, Shade, and with our wild mustang Ice.

We love you, Cree. Our hearts are up there with you now.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Three Years, and There's Still a Horse-Shaped Hole In My Heart

Photo copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved.

This month is a rough one for me. Markers everywhere. And it's not like we haven't added a bunch more in the last few weeks and months.

But this one hurts in a very particular way. Three-years, and there's still a horse-shaped hole in my heart.

We called him Ice (along with a few other names, because around here, everyone gets formal names and traditional names and nicknames, and occasionally gets called Butthead or similar, too). He was my mustang, my wild horse, my tough guy, my warrior. 

And he never had a chance. But we didn't know that that Christmas Eve six years ago when, having suddenly materialized in the next field, unattended, unfed, unwatered, and evidently unclaimed, he crossed the boundary onto our side.

And never left, until this day in 2017 when he crossed that other, more permanent boundary. Like my other horse, still living, he arrived abused, abandoned, starved nearly to death. Back then, we had plenty of snow, and it had crusted on the whiskers under his chin, the low-angled light of the setting sun turning it to ice crystals. And so he became Ice, because we had to call him something while we put the word out that this horse had shown up, and we'd make sure he was fed and watered until his people came and claimed him.

No one ever claimed him.

And so he got his fondest wish, which was to be part of a herd again, and everything seemed fine until the following May . . . when he colicked. Hard. And it wasn't regular colic; it was sand colic, and the vet estimated a 75+-lb. mass impacted in his gut, the second-largest she'd ever seen. The kind that develops not over five months, but more like five years.

And she warned me that we might not — probably wouldn't, in fact — be able to save him. But we could try. And so through an absolute rainfall of tears, because he had already set up camp in my heart, and the early monsoonal rainfall whipping the land at four in the morning, I was out there in the dark and the gale, changing the IV bags hooked up to him where he was confined in the small stall. And I did it, and so did he, and after weeks of work and walking, oh, my god, the endless walking, a few instances of getting my feet stomped and one of getting clotheslined in a way that, but for boots, would have taken my feet off at the ankles, we got him healthy again.

And he thrived. Until August 4th of 2017. He colicked again, not sand but a regular colic, but we're both experienced enough to know that it was bad. And the next day we learned why, and why he never had a chance: There was a tumor in his abdomen, impinging on the gut, and it had grown downward to such a size and position that there was full torsion, and the integrity of the wall was already breached. He was a warrior, and would have fought as long as we permitted it, but it was our job not to let him suffer, and based on what was described, we knew his pain was already untenable.

And so at 10:30 on the morning of the 6th, the vet came out a third time. And my beautiful high-stepping boy is buried by his new-found sisters, beneath a bank of wild sunflowers. The same place where I took his spirit some cedar and water and tobacco this morning. And my heart is still a mess of broken shards, and always will be. 

We love you, Ice. Someday we'll cross the bridge to run with you again.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Wild Sunflowers For Shade

Photo copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved.

My photos of her when she was younger and healthy are all on other hard drives. This was her last day, and frankly, up until the final half-hour, it was a good one. Stubborn, feisty, and completely unwilling to entertain rules or fences, right up to the end.

Her full name was Shade In the Blue, but we called her Shade. Also Monster Girl, Wild Girl, Butthead, and occasionally, always affectionately, You Bitch. Because she was: as dominant as her mother, without the matriarchal wisdom to apply it with discretion; spoiled rotten and utterly wild. She was never broken to saddle or rider; Wings had always planned to do it himself, but first his shoulder injury and then other pressing concerns always delayed it, until it was too late.

Miskwaki loved her, as he loved his whole herd, and he mourned her desperately on this night two years ago, when she was gone. He understood, from the moment we led her away, and a horse wailing with grief is a sound I never want to hear again.

The vet had been insisting that her problem was allergies, but we knew otherwise. It was cancer, a tumor, or rather, if memory serves, a collection of them, in her mammary area. Had we been heeded sooner, perhaps something could have been done, but by the time anyone would listen, it was too late. Years of working with horses, and dogs, too, and of losing them to the cancer cluster that bedevils this place, unfortunately gives you an aptitude for diagnosing these things.  

And so the fact of the matter is that we failed Shade, but not for lack of trying to do right by her. With some help from a friend, we made it quick and painless, so she didn't suffer: 4:45 PM, this day, two years ago. She's laid to rest now with her mother, Cree, and that mustang bad boy that all the girls loved, including me, Ice. They both died, indirectly or otherwise, of unfound tumors, too. 

At the appointed time, I did as always do with our animals who have left us too soon for us to follow: I took her cedar and tobacco and some water, laid and sprinkled on her resting place. And I discovered that, in the ninety-plus heat of this white-hot day, the wild sunflowers had blossomed a whole month early — nowhere else, only there, but directly over her: wild sunflowers for Shade, perfect for a wild spirit now free.

Photo copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved.

We love you, Shade. Your hoofprints on inscribed on our hearts, Wild Girl.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Hunter and Cree, our sweet girls, running with the moon and stars.

Photo copyright Wings, 2020;
all rights reserved.

Today is one of those markers that brings me such grief. Saturday, too, if my pain-fogged brain had only remembered exactly what it was that was nagging at me all day. I knew I was forgetting something important, but the pain would not let up, and I couldn't get my memory to break out of its vicious cycle. So for the second year in a row, I will mark Cree's resting place at the same time I do Hunter's.

Hunter was, in so many ways, my baby girl. The very first time I came here, she and BearGirl were off like a shot, running from the northeast field so fast they nearly levitated, racing to greet me. I parked and finally got my door open, and BearGirl planted herself in the opening to be adored, so Hunter promptly climbed in over the gas pedal and brake, under the steering wheel and also under my feet.

And she never let go.

She left us on this day in 2009, just after 4:30 in the afternoon, a whole city away, too far away for us to be there and so a weeping vet stood in for us, along with two or three vet techs, all holding her collectively with us on the phone, and all sobbing with us. She had developed immune-mediated thrombocytopenia and immune-mediated hemolytic anemia the summer before, a brutal one-two punch resulting from the same veterinary malpractice that took her sister from us in the fall of 2007. [Do not ever give your dogs Metacam. It killed both of our girls.] We saved her once, in the summer of 2008, but the second go-round was too much for her little body to fight, and so we had to do that hardest thing for her so that she wouldn't suffer anymore. And it broke us.

But she is still here with us, not merely her ashes, scattered in all of her favorite spots, but her beautiful sunny spirit. Sometimes I feel her here, contented now, as though she, too, is enjoying the house, enjoying the land again with her sisters and brothers now able to wander the space between the worlds and both sides of them at will. And I miss her every moment of every day.

Cree was more recent, three short years ago, and it was such an upheaval for the entire herd to lose their matriarch.

Photo copyright Aji, 2020;
all rights reserved.

That was the moment in which we all knew what was inevitable. We had been fighting to save her for a decade by then, for as long as she wanted to be saved, but she let us know that there would be no coming back this time. It was the day after Valentine's Day, a little after five-o'clock but nearly full dark in the stalls by the time the vet could get here. In her case, we had learned just before I captured that image that it was not the founder that was taking her, but a tumor we had known existed, having grown and shifted and suddenly pressing on her spine in a way that was irrecoverable.

And so our big girl left us, too, to run among the stars. For her, it was no doubt a gift in the same way that it was for Hunter: two active spirits forced to ground too long by pain, in Cree's case, unable for years to carry a rider any longer. But she was stubborn, and she wanted more time with us and the small herd she ran with an iron will, and so we trimmed and packed and clogged and taped and worked to rebuild her hooves in all kinds of weather, once even in the studio to keep clear of blizzard conditions, and we gave her two inches of new sole even after she'd rotated all the way through, and gave her two additional years of a happy life that no one else would try.

And with both of them, when they depended on us to do what they could not for themselves, we did it, weeping tears enough to fill the sky.

Now, when I look outside, I see them both with all their siblings with them on that side: on the earth, in the sun — Hunter and Cree, our sweet girls, running with the moon and stars. In a couple of hours, I'll take cedar and tobacco and water to the resting places, as we always do. We honor them as we would any family member; after all, these are the ones who give us everything, selflessly, and remembering them is the least we can do in return.

We love you, Hunter. We love you, Cree. You're never out of our hearts.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Two years this morning since I said goodbye to my beautiful boy.

Photo copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved.

Impossible to believe, but it's been two years this morning since I said goodbye to my beautiful boy.

Ice. The wild horse, the mustang with so very many names, and animated by so very many ancillary spirits. I still see him with them, in my mind's eye.

It breaks my heart to know that he's gone, and yet, we learned at the very end that it was always inevitable; by the time he found us, he was already sick, and never had a chance. His body tried to die on him a few months later, and yet his spirit was so strong, and mine so stubborn, that we brought him back to give him nearly a full four good years.

And he was happy.

All Ice ever wanted was a herd, a place to belong, fellow spirits to love. I'm glad that if nothing else, he could live out the days he had left to him, the years, actually, in just such a place. 

And so this morning at 10:30, before we left, I took cedar and tobacco and water out to his resting place. It's covered, at the moment, with a bank of wild sunflowers newly in bloom. It's fitting for a boy whose spirit was so sunny, all despite the abuse and abandonment he endured in the years before he found us and refused to leave. And I miss him every day.

But now he runs with Cree and Shade among the stars, across the bridge to the other world. And I think he's still happy.

We love you, Ice. And I'll ride you yet one day, my beautiful high-stepping mustang boy.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Plenty of shade and plenty of blue, but no Shade In the Blue.

Photo copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved.

It's been a tough day. Plenty of shade and plenty of blue, but no Shade In the Blue; as of late this afternoon, 44:45 PM, to be exact, she's been gone a year.

It doesn't seem possible. Not just the fact that it's been a year already; not possible that our dominant, defiant monster girl is gone. That was her on her last day, a few hours before it all went inevitably the way it was going to go: head shoved firmly through the ProPanel bars, determined to get the weed on the other side simply because it was on the other side instead of with the hay piled up in their trough. She had a few wonderful hours before the end, and for that we're all grateful. That's Miskwaki behind her; he knew, I'm convinced, and yet, like us, he couldn't bring himself to believe it.

He wept as hard as we did. Have you ever heard a horse cry? I don't mean a squeal of physical pain; I mean an incessant keening, grief from the very depths of a horsey soul. He did that on this evening last year, and it broke something in my own soul.

And it was inevitable; we'd known it, even though we weren't getting the responses needed for her at the professional level. What was dismissed as allergies I was sure was cancer, and I would have been ecstatic to have been wrong.

I wasn't. Unfortunately, after all these years, with horses and with dogs, I know the signs.

She was far too young — only sixteen, and that just barely. Miskwaki had her beat, age-wise, by one year. Every now and then, the dogs will venture out that way, to her resting place in the south field by her mother, Cree, and her bad boy Ice; Chinook never knew her, but Kit and Cricket did. I went out that way myself at the appointed time this afternoon, took dried cedar and tobacco and a little water. She doesn't need it now, of course — she and Cree and Ice are all running with the stars — but I think like all spirits, they like to know we remember.

And we do remember. We love you, Shade. Always.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

One year without Ice.

Photo copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved.

I just cannot believe that it's been one whole year since my big white mustang left me.

That was always one of my favorite photos of Ice. He was a camera hound, and the world's biggest ham: It didn't matter that he'd never seen a camera before he found us; he figured out right away what this was all about. He'd pose like a show horse without being told (or without even knowing what "show" meant). One evening, he literally did the whole supermodel-photo-shoot thing for me, swishing back and forth from side to side, "get my good side," "now get my other good side," over and over and over again. Someday I'll find that set of photos.

As of 10:30 this morning, he's been gone one full year. My heart is just as broken as it was on that day. I went out to where his body rests, by Cree and now by Shade, too; I took him cedar and tobacco, hay and grain and water. Wings understands why I do these things, because he does them, too. 

And I wept.

I thought I had so much more time with him, time to desensitize him from the abuse he suffered before he found us, time to break him in and ride him, to fly along with that perfect natural high-stepping gate in a wild mustang body. We didn't know that he was already sick when he found us, that the impaction was there and that the tumor was probably already there, too. We fought so very hard to save him the first time around, and we did, and we thought that was it.

And then the spirits ripped my heart out.

On the evening of August 4th of last year, he was wild and happy and free, running, bucking, pitching for the sheer joy of it, playing with Miskwaki and Shade. By the morning of the 5th, something was very wrong; by the 6th, he was gone.

And this Ice-sized hole in my heart, a sixteen-hand wild horse, never gets any smaller.

I told him about Miika today. He would've loved her, with her fire and her spirit and her bossy personality. He was the bad boy of the herd, and she would've loved him, too. I know his brother misses him still.

We do, too, this horse who stole in here and stole our hearts and left this raw and gaping void. We love you, by all your names: Miikwami, Shongeska, Ice. And I will ride you someday, in a world beyond this one.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Shade's body is at rest, her spirit running free. Miskwaki flies alone now.

Photo copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved.

That photo is from two years ago almost to the day, June 29th, 2016. It's Miskwaki surrounded by his herd: Cree in the foreground with the fly mask, Shade to his right, Ice to his left. Miskwaki is the only one left now.

The guys with the excavating equipment showed up a little before nine. We had everything ready, and the guy operating the bucket dozer did an absolutely beautiful clean job. It was all done by ten, and Shade's body is at rest. Her spirit, of course, was already long gone, already galloping home to be with Cree and Ice.

For those of you wondering exactly what and why this happened, here's the short form, as well as we can piece it together. Shade was Cree's daughter, by a sire owned by a white woman a few miles away, a former friend of a former friend; the two conspired 17 years ago to convince Wings to breed Cree to that stallion. [Shade was born the year before I returned to New Mexico.] At the time, he had only recently adopted Cree, she seemed healthy, and he had no way of knowing that her previous circumstances, combined with her genes, would lead to her terrible founder and eventual Cushing's. Worse, he had no way of knowing of the irresponsible breeding practices involving the sire (the whole county knows it now, because it's been an ongoing thing, reportedly, with many horses involved, but we only learned of it after Shade was already between five and ten years old). So the bloodline was compromised, but we didn't know it.

Still, Shade had always been healthy as a . . . well, you know. She seemed to have inherited none of either parent's issues. About three years ago, she developed low-grade laminitis in her right front (the precursor to founder), but it was caught early and treated thoroughly. Meanwhile, despite Cree's terrible case of founder, having rotated all the way through both soles on the front, we were able, with a HUGE amount of work and dedication, to rebuild new healthy sole. We went through two solid years of constant, heavy-duty effort to save her, and she was doing great . . . until February 15th, 2016. She lost control of her hindquarters, with trembling and stumbling and impaired motor control, and it became clear there was something neurological at work. A little field-testing combined with location and other evidence, and the vet told us that that sort of behavior was a manifestation of a tumor or other mass pressing on the spinal cord. She would not get well, especially not given the founder and Cushing's, and sure enough, she went down that night. After Ice succumbed to a tumor-induced torsion in August, we had Shade and Miskwaki's labs done to try to prevent exactly this. Shade showed a slight elevation in liver enzymes, but nothing specific nor especially serious; I was more concerned about the incipient signs of Cushing's that she was exhibiting, despite the fact that that test came back negative (which can happen in its earlier stages, especially).

At any rate, a few months ago, Shade abraded her underside rather badly scratching on the stands of winter red willow. The vet thought it was allergy; we weren't so sure. I'm reasonably sure now that it was one or more tumors, even then; as in humans with certain cancers like lymphoma, some equine tumors can cause terrible itching to the skin. She was also showing more signs of Cushing's (topline weight loss, hirsutism, etc.), and her arteries and veins, particularly those on her belly, were consistently enlarged. For two years, she'd been having near-constant heats, which we were assured was not abnormal, but given her other adrenal issues, we now think that this was an early indicator. The vet had had her on two weeks' worth of SMZ, to which I think she reacted as part of the overall complex of disease running rampant through her body. By the time she colicked last week, with the right dorsal colon displacement, her enzymes were more elevated yet, with some other irregularities. But nothing could happen on any other front until the displacement got resolved, so we focused on that; meanwhile, an ultrasound of the liver showed blank black spots throughout what should have been a clean white line. We suspected masses, and the final diagnosis has been hepatocellular necrosis, whether of neoplastic origin or not, but we're sure she was neoplastic. In lay terms, that means the cells in her liver were dying off, secondary to one or more tumors. It was undoubtedly one of the tumors that caused the displacement, and one (possibly the same, growing, shifting one) that pressed on her spine yesterday and caused her to lose sensation and motor control in her back end.

Cancer is way, way up locally among horses across the board. One of our neighbors, who owns the Indian Horse Ranch just up the road from us, had the exact same thing happen with one of his stallions recently, and again, it was cancer that did it. It's a product of climate change, changes in contaminants and in what appears in the hay and their feed and the air and the level of sun exposure complicating everything. This is climate change up close and personal, and it's killing horses all over the county. In Shade's case, given the genetics involved, she didn't stand a chance once this thing, whatever it was, took hold. We're grateful that we could give her one last truly beautiful day, and then make sure that she started her journey in a single second, with no pain.

Our big worry now is Miskwaki. In under 17 months, he's gone from a herd of four to only himself, and he's grieving terribly. He called to her most of the night; he spent much of the morning with his face turned to the back wall of the stable. He's out grazing now, at least, but horses are herd animals, and he needs his herd more than most, given the terrible abuse that he suffered and the constant long-term loneliness and isolation. He will need a companion, a healthy one.

For now, though, he needs time to mourn, just as we do. It's easier now that the burial is over, but there's still a huge void here today. She was a strong personality, and that's a masterpiece of understatement. And now, there's a dark bay Shade-sized hole in our hearts, but she's headed for her blue, with her mother and her boy Ice, and Miskwaki and we will take care of each other until it's time to follow.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Shade, In the Blue

Photo copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved.

That was her full name, minus the comma:  Shade In the Blue. Cool and dark against the desert sky. We just called her Shade.

Now, she's in the actual blue, running to meet her mother and Ice.

She had a rough day yesterday, and we'd essentially made the decision already. Then this morning, she had deteriorated so significantly that we thought perhaps it might be out of our hands anyway; she was lying down, head up but eyes mostly closed, with insufficient energy even to hold the edge of her tongue fully inside her mouth.

And an hour later, she was up.

She had one of the best days she's had in a week and a half: She let herself out to the north pasture to join Miskwaki, where they grazed contentedly side by side, a few feet apart — snouts busy in the grass and tails switching away the flies almost in unison, just like old times. That's her above about 1:00 this afternoon, pulling one of her hallmark stunts: shoving her head through the fence and craning her neck over the bars to get at whatever obscure bit of green hovered otherwise just out of reach. It never mattered that there was more easily accessible and far better green elsewhere; if she wanted something, she was damn well going to make sure she got it.

"Stubborn" was the parenthetical in front of her first name. Also "Bullheaded," and "Defiant." She was a thousand pounds of pure attitude, and she never was never more than slightly green-broke. She wore a saddle but never a rider, and she liked it that way. What she wanted most was to be free, and she got it.

Around 4:00 or a little before, Wings went to give her one of her doses of meds, and noticed her straining to urinate, her hindquarters trembling and barely able to stay upright. He called me out, and by the time we got there, she clearly had severe neurological impingement; she could barely stand upright, and her hind legs trembled and shuddered with the effort.

It was time. We had to make the hardest decision any horse person ever has to make. it's not the one you're thinking; it's far, far worse.

Because no one would come.

No matter that our money was good; no one would come out, either to help her or to dig. Yes, I know it's Sunday, but I am more than a little bitter about the fact that our situation in this county is such that there are so few options that, no matter how dire the circumstance, a horse can be left to suffer.

We couldn't let her suffer. What you need to understand about being owned by a horse is that, with an animal that large, certain conditions are so dangerous that they cannot be allowed to continue; the danger to the horse, the risk of serious, brutally painful harm is too great. In her case, we're reasonably sure that the underlying problem (and the cause of both her liver issues and the colic with the right dorsal displacement) was at least one tumor, or perhaps a series of them. As occurred with her mother, Cree, in her final days, we think the tumor had expanded sufficiently to impinge on the spinal column. There would have come a point, sooner rather than later, that her hindquarters would have given out. When a horse goes down under ordinary circumstances, that's one thing; when she can't feel her legs or loses proprioception and motor control, there's a risk of her landing wrong and breaking one. And then there's only one option left anyway.

But no one would come. Only Wings's clan brother, who has dealt with this in the past, came, and came immediately, to help. And so we led her gently out to where her mother and her beloved Ice rest, and Wings and Joe took care of it at 4:45 PM today. It was instant, painless, and she has begun already her journey home to Cree and Ice. It was the hardest decision, and yet also one that made itself; you cannot promise to take care of such a spirit and then abandon it in the final hour. Shade wants to be free, and she is now, and it was the one thing we cold do for her, the one final gift we could give her.

Tomorrow, Chris will be here at 8:00 AM to excavate, and we will bury her, as we do, with all that she needs for her journey. But her spirit has already begun to make its way along the sky roads. A few days ago, we said to each other that we felt, somehow, as though Shade's fate and that of the rains were intertwined: If we got the latter, we'd also get the former. They were indeed linked; just not as we thought. Two hours after her final moment, the rains came, running from east to west along the south: a hard, driving rain that soaked the earth thoroughly. A little while later, a second storm moved through. We gave her her freedom, and she sent us the rain as a thank-you.  

I am angry about so very many things right now. Many of them have to do with what brought things to this pass in the first place, things unknown to us then but that cannot be undone. One of them, though, is prospective: what this will do to Miskwaki, because in less than seventeen months, his herd has gone from four to himself alone. He was half-wild with grief, calling to her, weeping as only a horse can do. He's calmer now, but he's going to have a very hard time of it for a while.

We will, too. But we did the right thing for our beloved girl. Her name, in some traditions (not ours), is a synonym for a ghost, a revenant. She is none of those things, but she is a strong, beautiful, willful, powerful spirit, and that is how I will always see her: Shade In the Blue, defiantly happy.

We love you, Shade.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Shade

Photo copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved.

That's Shade, a little over an hour ago. The eating is a good sign, but as you can see, she's not looking at all herself. 

Shade is sixteen, normally sleek and muscular; perfect weight assertive, stubborn, take-no-shit temperament. Cree, who we lost last year on February 15th (2017), was her mother, and she was really the only one who could discipline Shade at all. Cree was also the herd matriarch, and when we lost her, the other three bonded tighter than ever. Then when we lost Ice on August 6th? Shade and Miskwaki have become inseparable, to the point that neither wants the other out of his or her sight.

I mentioned in the post just below this one some of what's been going on lately. Shade has had a few relatively mild colics over the years, generally nothing that walking and maybe a little Banamine couldn't handle. She did, however, seem to get entirely her mother's genes, so she developed laminitis in her right front a couple of years ago (mild and well-managed), and lately we've been thinking that she's also developed her mom's Cushing's. That is likely true, but it remains to be seen whether we'll have the chance to address it.

She had been dealing with a skin irritation on the underside of her belly that looked like allergy, but along with that, she began losing weight, especially off her topline, and her coat and skin had lost their healthy-looking sheen and texture. All potentially related to the Cushing's (save the allergy, although it and the inflammation could certainly aggravate each other). Two weeks ago, we had the vet pull some labs, and her liver enzymes were elevated: not drastically so; just enough to indicate a problem, or at least a potential one. The plan was two weeks' worth of antibiotics in case it was infection-related, and then re-evaluate.

The last couple of days, she took a dive. Clearly at least pre-colicky, although Banamine and walking, again, seemed initially to take care of it. Not today. Today, she was in enough distress that Miskwaki constantly nipped at her neck and back and flanks to try to get her on her feet (because horses know, and they know what needs to happen; he used to do it with Cree, too). A little before 5 PM, it was clearly time to call the vet (who has been dealing with colic emergencies all over the county nonstop for days, and has had very little sleep, but was kind enough to come out within a half-hour). She spent a couple of hours out here, and initially, it looked very bad indeed.

Without getting too graphic (those of you with horses will know what this means), she was in full colic, such that her intestine was displaced. Now, that's not torsion; it's not good, but it's not the near-death sentence that a torsion colic is (that's what Ice developed at the end, a result of the tumor we didn't even know he had having grown and shifted to such an extent that it turned his intestine into a twist). Shade's is merely moved to the side, which is still dangerous but not at quite the same level. However, on the manual exam, the vet couldn't get beyond the displacement (sometimes it's not so bad, and that can be done; this was not one of those times). What that means is that we don't know what's causing the displacement: simple gas? an impaction? a mass (i.e., a tumor)? that limits what we can do even diagnostically.

So we began with more sedation and tubing her with mineral oil. Then, the vet did an ultrasound of the liver area. That was not promising; she has to analyze the images thoroughly, but it appears as though there might be a whole line of small masses there.  Now, that doesn't necessarily mean cancer; they could be benign. Alternatively, even a benign mass, growing too much or shifting the wrong way, can prove fatal. So that's a crapshoot. Finally, she did a belly tap (think spinal tap, but of the stomach cavity, using a hollow needle to pull out fluid for analysis). We were hoping to be able to see what proteins or other substances might be in it, but instead, it was filled with blood. That likely indicates internal bleeding — although, again, it could be something relatively minor that just happens to coincide with everything else.

Afterward, she refused her grain and lay down again; no thrashing, no seizing, just a half-roll. Then, she emitted a small amount of gas a couple of times, and that is the absolute best thing that could happen right now. The vet recalibrated her chances from 80/20 against to 50/50. We can address the liver stuff down the road (and the Cushing's, too, if it comes to that), but nothing happens if she doesn't make it through this colic. We have two syringes filled with sedative for her should things go south, but as of last check about 20 minutes ago, she was lying down relatively comfortably, head up, eyes clear and alert, looking as relaxed as is possible under the circumstances. We're taking that as a good sign. Miskwaki is standing watch over her. And we'll take all the prayers and good vibes for this girl that we can get, because it's not her time yet. Whatever ya got, please, please, send it her way. 

Thanks.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Cree, the Spirit Horse, One Year On

Photo copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved.

My guy. And our girl. One of my favorite shots, despite the inherent grief in it.

It's been a year already.

Cree has been a Spirit Horse, racing across the sky, for a year tonight. She has Ive with her now, and I have no doubt that they are running in ways they couldn't when they left this place. Cree's forefeet are healed and whole, no rotation, no pain.

I just came back from the field where her body lies. I put cedar and tobacco on her resting place, and I told her we love her, as I always do. 

She's in our hearts every day, and I think she knows that. I miss her terribly. the one saving grace is that she has no pain now. She has her brother now, too.

We love you, Cree.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Ice is home now. Not up for much tonight, but there's a lot of work and expense ahead.

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

He is home now.

I was going to post the photo that Wings took of our final moments together, but I can't. I put wildflowers on his grave today (and Cree's, too), and I can't bring myself to post those, either. This is how I want to remember him. For the last of these posts (for now), it seemed fitting to show him at his most beautiful. After all, where he is now, this is what he looks like once again.

It's been a hard day. Virtually no sleep, mostly because of physical pain from my autoimmune disease, which was due to a combination of the physical and other stresses of the past week catching up to me and the weather front that moved in overnight. It's been raining most of the day. Probably because of all that, the sense of loss really caught up to me today — and to Wings, too, I think. I'll probably be better tomorrow, but tonight isn't good. I do owe special thanks, though, to the person who sent us something via e-mail this morning that included, in addition to two human names, "from Ice." You brought tears to our eyes, both of us, but it was such a beautiful thing to do, and we love you for remembering that.

I was supposed to spend today priming the stairwell, but nothing went according to plan. I mean nothing. I will be lucky if I get to it tomorrow, and there are three more coats to go on it, all of which will involve ladders and scaffolds. Meanwhile, with flooring in the offing over the next two weeks, I now have to turn my attention to the next big expense, which is cabinetry. I am feeling buried about now. I'm also not doing very well at putting my thoughts together tonight, at least not with any real coherence, so I'm just going to post the links for sharing:

• Wings's site, for sales;
• Lowe's cards (the physical version) via our Amazon wishlist;
• Lowe's e-cards (delivered via e-mail) here; and
• Home Depot cards via the company site. The e-version using my e-mail address is great; I take the tablet to the store with me, and they scan it off the screen.

Thanks again, to everyone. I think I'm done in for the night, physically, mentally, every other way. Tomorrow, Ice will be still be gone home, and that'll be time enough for me to get back to dealing with other issues and tasks.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

 

Visitors, downed fences, next big expense, and my Spirit Horse.

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

That was the first time Ice was hooked up to lactated ringers, more than three years ago. Hard to tell from the photo, but he had his muzzle against my hand, which was unheard-of for him back then.

By one measure, he reached his destination about 10:30 this morning. By another way of calculating it, he should reach it about that time tomorrow. He's already proven to me that he can travel freely back and forth, so I don't think it much matters; I think it transcends our understanding of time and space anyway.

I miss him terribly.

But it has been a day. Visitors this morning for a couple of hours. Then two horses from a few parcels east got out and showed up next door just on the east side of our fence — right where the cattle knocked it down earlier in the year (and the elk herd finished it off). And so Wings and I took various tools and headed out in the hottest part of the day to set several new fence posts (done the old way, with the cast-iron tube that is placed over the post and raised and hammered down by hand until the post hits the proper depth. we restrung the barbed wire temporarily; he and River will restretch it probably next week. And also next week, Miskwaki gets his blood drawn. Just to be sure.

I am, however, way behind on everything, and the last week is starting to catch up to me in a big way. Pain levels elevated, fatigue overwhelming. My heart still hurts, although it and my mind are more at peace over the whole thing than I ever could have anticipated, and Im thankful for that. Probably because we now have a better idea of what was awaiting our big tough guy all this time, and it doesn't matter how stoic he was; he couldn't have beaten it all, and it would have caused him such pain. We had to drive the ATV past his resting place several times today in the process of fixing the fence, and all I felt from it, besides my own personal sadness, was a sense of peace and freedom.
Nothing new to report on the house, because events of the day overtook everything else. I'm hoping for flooring on both levels to commence next week. If it dries out enough, maybe we'll get work on both septic and color coat the week after. Or not, if the monsoon season hangs around. But we had our first winter bird here this morning, on August tenth, so the rains may be ready to move on sooner than we thought.

For now, I need to gear up for the next big expense, which is the kitchen cabinetry. It needs to be put in, because, aside from the really obvious fact that we need storage space and cooking surfaces, we can't do things like put in the sink without the lower cabinets anyway. We need to built straight through in the proper order, which will save us time, hassle, and a LOT of money in the long run, so cabinetry it is. And I'm told to expect somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 grand before we're done. This is where Home Depot or Lowe's cards become crucial, and very, VERY useful. So here are all the links:

• Wings's site, for sales;
• Lowe's cards (the physical version) via our Amazon wishlist;
• Lowe's e-cards (delivered via e-mail) here; and
• Home Depot cards via the company site. The e-version using my e-mail address is great; I take the tablet to the store with me, and they scan it off the screen.

Thanks again, to everyone. For now, I am absolutely beat, struggling with legs and ankles and feet, and missing my Spirit Horse, and I'm going to wrap it up for the evening.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

House coming together slowly; a lot on tap for next week. New info on Ice, too.

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

Well, I've wasted entirely too much trying, without success, to find the series of Ice photos I wanted to post of the big ham for tonight. I think it was in the fall of 2015. He saw me with the camera, and started turning and swaying and flipping his mane: "Take my photo! Take my photo! Be sure you get my good side. Now my other good side. Here's my profile shot. How's that? You want more? 'Cause I can do more . . . ." This went on for several minutes, and I just stood at the fence and shot frame after frame like any other fashion photog would do.

But there are only so many hours left in this day, so this one of him in 2014, when we were just beginning to get him out of the woods, and when he was clearly posing, will have to do. Yes, you'll have to suffer through at least one more night of this, possibly two, because in our way, he will be on his journey for another day or so yet.

We learned a bit more about what happened today. His chem panel came back, and oddly, it showed no real implication of either liver or kidneys. Both were basically within normal limits, and yet the sclera of his eyes was completely jaundiced. That means, most likely, one of two things: a tumor inside; or he was hemolyzing his own blood. Or, perhaps most likely, both. After all, we learned on Saturday, along with everything else, that he had cancer; I think our mistake was in thinking it began on the outside and was working his way up. I now think it began somewhere else inside, spread, and then worked its way outside and down as the aggressive squamous-cell tumor that was visible. That would also explain why everything else hit so fast, particularly if the tumor had begun bleeding; equine digestive tracts are hypersensitive at the best of times, and are decidedly not set up to accommodate blood. If he began to bleed out internally a few weeks ago, the accumulated effect could have included triggering the primary colic that is listed as his COD.

And I am now so very, very glad that he had just a few hours over one full day that was bad, that we took away the pain before it got truly horrific.

And Esiban has no mass, no swelling, nothing whatsoever on her jaw and throat now. NO. THING. I can't imagine it was the phenobarbital, which at that level should by all rights have killed her and Smoky too; I'm thinking it must have been the Banamine in his system. Either way, she is fully healthy again. And yes, despite it all, we are doing what he would've wanted, and are not letting them go hungry.

On other fronts, the main crew is off for the week now. They finished up the doorknob assemblies, and did a lot more trim work:

Photo copyright Aji, 2017;
all rights reserved.

That's the utility room, so you can see what it looks like next to the plaster. The trim work has not yet been put on, obviously; that will come next week. This is a close-up of color comparisons (although the plaster is a warmer earthy adobe shade than it appears here): 

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

And I, fractured toes notwithstanding, have to get that stairwell wall primed and sponged and painted this weekend. Give me strength (and some coordination, too, please, and some extra energy while you're at it). Then next week they can get to work on laying the flooring upstairs and working on the stairs themselves, while the other guys lay tile downstairs.
And as I said last night, there's a lot of labor left, and costs for things like lumber that have to be incurred here. But about all that's left to buy for the inside are cabinets, appliances, and water heater (the big things; there will still be small things like the oddly-sized doors that Tony's building, the shelving, the closet bars, all that sort of thing). At this point, outside of sales, the absolute best way to help is with the Home Depot and Lowe's cards. I suspect that most of what's left will be coming from Home Depot, although that's not a given; either way, they can all be put to very good (and very necessary) use. So here are all of those links:

• Wings's site, for sales;
• Lowe's cards (the physical version) via our Amazon wishlist;
• Lowe's e-cards (delivered via e-mail) here; and
• Home Depot cards via the company site. The e-version using my e-mail address is great; I take the tablet to the store with me, and they scan it off the screen.

As I also said, thank you again, from both of us, to everyone for your support over the last few days. I miss my boy in ways I never even anticipated; the empty space here is huge now, just like the hole in my heart. And yes, I still talk to him every day. I figure the hawk that I thought was here as his guardian but was instead to be his guide can fly high enough to deliver the messages.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.