January 2011     

• Joshua Tree - December 25-January 2
• Goals for 2011
• Saturday 8th - Loads o' Hay and Knitting Conquests
• Sunday 9th - Uno Starts His 2011 Training
• Tuesday 11th - Surprise! and Bees are Done For :(
• Wednesday 12th - New Bed
• Saturday 15th - Bee Inspection
• Sunday 16th - Pea-soup at Cool
• Tuesday 18th - Notes to Self on 20 Mule Team 100
• Saturday 22nd - Overlook > Bus Stop = Sickly
• Friday 28th - Gravel
• Saturday 29th - Fun with Honey

Back to November (December Didn't Happen) • Forward to February

For reasons I can't quite fathom, December never seems to get written. This is probably a combination of dreariness on my part (the middle of December produced a small, quiet, melt-down for me and a resolve to try to remember to take my pills) and frantically busy activities trying to get ready for our annual Christmas trip. 

This December was no different. I got bales and bales of hay unloaded and stacked (now sadly practically all gone and in need of replenishing), I made Uno a green fleece blankie, made Chili a crate-bed insert (by butchering an existing pee bed into a suitable size), and got the trailer ready for our trip.

Joshua Tree

[Photos on Facebook] • [EZ Care Blob]

This year we tried something new. With the dark nights, overloading at work, and general winter-culture-shock, I didn't want to be tied into trying to get a horse(s) ready for DVE multi-day but still wanted to go somewhere over the Christmas week. Joshua Tree came up in conversation and pft jumped at the idea.

Everything got packed pretty well, except for food and food-preparation items. We barely made it out of the house with two coffee mugs, let alone knives (I have since purchased a set of plastic knives/forks/spoons), or any butter for cooking.

Grizzle came with us, while Chili went to stay at Auntie Ann House's for the duration. Despite seldom getting out of the trailer (she made one in-cage appearance outdoors at Black Rock), I think Grizzle got the better deal - able to hang out with us; while poor Chili came home very creaky in the hips - either from spending time outside in the cold, or from running around with Ann and Jess' dogs we weren't sure.  :(

Black Oak Campground

The first few days were spent at Black Oak which is right on the NW edge of the park just outside the town of Yucca Valley. The horse camp there is more or less a large flat area next to the main campground with a few sparse joshua trees around the edge, picnic tables and firepits. They also had a water supply, some tie-rails, and evidence of the recent torrential downpours southern California had been having. On the approach to the camp, many of the sides of the sandy roads had disintegrated, with the water digging furrows several feet deep in places. The camp itself had been dragged with heavy equipment in the last couple of days- presumably to remove the 2 ft deep trench that had been carved through the middle of the camp by the rushing water.

We arrived after 11 hours of driving, at midnight, in a rainstorm. Luckily, I'd brought along my brand new Christmas raincoat (thanks Mumma!), so we got the horses set up and blanketed in no time, with the trailer positioned to block the majority of the wind (and luckily one of our rear Spring-Ties can be turned to face the back, so Fergus could tuck himself in behind). Our friends Ann and Jess showed up about 15 minutes later, having taken a different route to get down there. Verdict: going south on hw 395 and coming through the east side of the greater LA Basin takes about 1.5 hours longer.

Fergus enjoying the lack of mud on the first morning

In the morning it was cool, but dry. Dry! Dry and MUD-FREE!

	Sunday - Short Loop Trail Being in the desert is very special, especially in the winter when all is soggy at home. Yes, it was a little gritty (acres and acres of decomposed granite <jealous>), but so much interesting vegetation to look at (most of it very spikey) and lovely evening light against the mountains.
	We dressed up in our warmest woollies and took a ride along the California Riding and Hiking trail, which runs the whole width of the park, returning via the "Short Loop Trail" in a wash.  I finally got to try out my thickest, fleece-lined riding tights that were given to me a couple of years ago by Judy Long. She didn't like them, saying she felt like she was wearing a nappy when wearing them. They are hard to get on (fleece lining bunches up), but very toasty.
	Monday brought strong winds and pink faces. We ate breakfast in town (one advantage of being very close to civilisation at Black Oak Campground), and then did a short tour into the main park (you can't get there directly from BO - you have to go out and around about 45 minutes). We managed to get to Hidden Valley (shortened tour, since Ann's knee was hurting and pft's legs were seizing up) and to Jumbo Rocks by sunset. On the way home, we stopped to watch these climbers who'd strung a wire between two large rocks and were shimmying across. The drop below was about 100'.
	Tuesday - attempts to ride with Ann and Jess resulted in me getting dumped in a [thankfully non-spikey] bush (I managed to get 6 foot out of camp, mind you), so we once again abandoned social rides and split up.  pft and I ended up scaling the Eureka Peak trail.
	After scrambling up what we hoped was a horseable trail, when we got to the summit and consulted the map and wandered along the ridge a short distance, we realised it wasn't the summit at all.  That's the summit (peak on left)
	This is the start of the Bigfoot Trail, which we tried to descend on, with limited success.   Looking out towards Palm Springs
	pft dropped his map, so hopped off to fetch it. Thinking the trail was a bit too narrow for Fergus to turn on, he left him standing. Fergus turned around anyway, to make sure he wasn't missing anything.
	Palm Springs   Uno, trying to pretend that he's a good boy  and hadn't really dumped me at the start of the ride and gone running off across the desert, thankfully avoiding cholla-ing himself, and doing some spectacular- saddlebredy- type trotting to  impress the crowds. Not.
	Arriving at the actual summit - Eureka Peak, 5,518'.   Looking north towards Yucca Valley  and the town of Joshua Tree.
	Fergus admiring the view.   Starting down again - the white haze  on the horizon is greater Los Angeles
	More of the Bigfoot Trail - first we scrambled down the waterfall on the right, then we skedaddled down the waterfall on the left (circumnavigating a spikey branch)... carried on down the wash only to come upon a 10 ft sheer rock drop with no way around.  Returned the way we'd come - Uno redeemed his earlier stupidity by doing excellent trail-work clambering back up.
	Descending on foot. Fergus did some excellent flat-walking in the wash on the way home. Uno and I got to jig to keep up. Limbo tree that I made pft dismount to avoid on the way home - the gap just wasn't big enough.
On Wednesday, the weather deteriorated further. It was blowing quite hard on Tuesday afternoon when we were finishing our ride and all night long it blew so hard it was like being on Everest.  I lay awake in the trailer, wondering if it could blow over, and, if it did, would I be able to get out through a side window and would I be able to turn off the propane heater. Neither pft nor I slept well. Later we found out there had been 60 mph gusts.  In the morning, most of our outside possessions (tables, chairs, buckets, shoes, etc) were blown across the campground, including much of the pones' hay. At this point I switched them to small mesh hay bags in an attempt to keep hay in front of them as opposed to all over the rest of the desert. View looking out the "bedroom window" on Wednesday morning.
	Instead of attempting to ride we took an extended tour of the park, driving all the way through from north to south.  Along the way, we got to admire the strange light as the rain came and went. We stopped at White Tanks and did their short nature trail, past a rock arch and were treated to the most amazing rainbow as a squall came through. The rain stopped and we were in bright sunshine by the time we got to the Cholla Cactus Garden (those things light up with a halo in the sunshine).  We also stopped at the Fan Palm oasis at the south end of the park at Cottonwood.  Finished up with a meal in Palm Springs (or thereabouts). It was strangely warm and muggy in Palm Springs - no coats needed - but as soon as we drove back up into the mountains it went back to the customary chilliness.
	On Thursday it was time to move over to Ryan Campground in the center of the park.  We spent the morning in town, stocking up on certified weed-free pellets (Ryan doesn't allow hay, to minimize the spread of invasive plants), propane (we'd been running the heater on full all night, every night, and sometimes during the day to ensure that Grizzle stayed warm - luckily that still only equated to half the propane in the tank), and buying a couple more of the coveted 7-gallon water jugs from Big 5. Ann and Jess decided they'd rather stay where they were, so we left them at Black Oak.
	Once settled in the new camp, we took the pones for a stroll up to the old Ryan Ranch adobe house before sunset. Apparently there was once a spring here (although I couldn't see any signs of it now, just some ice down between some of the rocks) and they used to pipe water from there over to the Lost Horse Mine several miles to the south.
	Our evening stroll also introduced the pones into the concept of "people on top of rocks" - which caused some interest.
Most people we talked to said they'd never seen anyone actually using the horse camp at Ryan. I guess the lack of horse water and needing to use weed-free pellets puts people off, which is a shame because the camp is in a really fun spot - surrounded by the huge monzogranite boulders that characterize the park. During the night, the horses were banging around so I got up to check on them. Their main problem seemed to be that they were hungry (miscalculation on my part as to exactly how many pellets constitutes a proper meal for a greedy horse). My main problem was happening to glance at the thermometer and discovering that it was 12°F/-11°C. Ack.
	In the morning, we were joined by another friend, Kaity Elliott who house-sat for us during the summer while we were in England. Kaity only lives a couple of hours away and had been at DVE earlier in the week with her #1 horse, Kody. He was now on break, so she brought along her 21 yr old POA, Sonny instead. We opted to go south and circumnavigate the Lost Horse Mine Trail.

...more to come...

EZ Care Blog Story

Goals for 2011

This is a tricky one - I need to set goals without bumming myself out about over-abundance of horses and under-abundance of time. First on the list is keeping Uno trundling along in endurance fitness. Second is making sure that Jackit gets ridden and turned into a functioning member of society. Which puts Roop third on the list, and definitely standing in the wings. 

Saturday 8th
Loads o' Hay and Knitting Conquests

Friday I took the truck-n-trailer to Echo Valley in Auburn, played musical trailers on the scales. They wanted me to unhitch the trailer from the truck, weigh the empty truck, rehitch the trailer, move it onto the scales, unhitch the trailer from the truck, weigh the empty trailer, rehitch the trailer to go and load the hay - and repeat in reverse with fully-laden vessels. Surprisingly, it took less time than I thought it was going to.

Then here was Saturday's activity:
Mission accomplished:

	Knitting Conquests pft's "Flame socks". When he first brought home the yarn, I didn't like it overly - too much orange in it for my taste, but the socks were for him, not for me. However, the more I've knitted, the more I've come to appreciate the colours, which are absolutely gorgeous:
	My olive kerchief, otherwise known as the "bat cape". Added a picot hem to this one (after some research into a) what exactly picot was and b) how exactly to do it). It didn't turn out quite how I imagined, but I was really pleased with the result.
	Blocked this one (unlike the first blue one) which really defined the detail and brought out the lacing, but made it stiffer and less fluffy and cosy to wear.
	Very pleased with how it turned out.

Sunday 9th
Uno Starts His 2011 Training

Or at least we tried to. I took him out to Cronin and we had to walk for most of the first four miles just to wait for his head to settle down - stopping every 20 feet to to listen to whatever new sound he could hear: voices, hoof-beats, a donkey, a person using a wood saw, a bird that sounded like a guinea pig, etc.- and make sure it was safe to proceed (I knew better than to force him to go forwards while his head was in "high alert"). 

It took us three hours to do 8 miles, but finally after a big uphill and six miles, his brain seemed to re-engage and we were able to get in a couple of miles of proper work. It was getting dusky by then, so I asked Uno to walk extra fast back down to the river and then to trot all the way from the movie set to the trailhead without stopping, which he did quite politely (finally!)

But so much for a "seasoned 100-mile horse" - it was like riding a brand new greenie.

He excelled in the "Scary Things Uno Has Done" department by picking about the steepest place he could find (at the south end of the West Ridge where the West Ravine crosses it) and bolting straight down, making me feel like the Man from Snowy River (I thought I was a goner). I discovered afterwards (once I got him stopped at the bottom of the hill without falling off) that two mtn bikes had showed up on the trail above him (they hadn't done anything wrong, he was just overreacting). That was "exciting" (not). I was not amused and expletives flew. But it seemed to get some of the stupidity out of his system, and got rid of my nervousness and replaced it with "that's enough of this crap".
On the flip side, with all the walking, we've been doing his walk-gait has improved immeasurably. My current goal is to get him ready for 20MT 100, however, this will entirely depend on if I can continue to get his brain back to non-idiot status. Right now, I can only ride on weekends, so this gives me 5-6 more rides to get it done in. <gulp>
As far as fitness, I'm hoping these 5-6 rides will be enough to get him back in shape. He's a big, strong horse and certainly doesn't feel like he's lost much condition - he barely broke a sweat yesterday. Upon arrival at Cronin it was 31°F/-1°C. By the time I was done, it had warmed up to a balmy 35°F/+2°C. We had fog all weekend and initially I thought I was going to have to go higher to get out of it. Turns out I needed to go lower to get under it - we even got to ride in the sunshine for a short while and the light was positively ethereal.  Best of all, I've stuck him in a blanket to keep him mud-free and it's a marvellous thing to whip off that blanket, revealing the pearly white-n-brown pristine horse-body underneath (never mind the tide-mark of grime on the bits of horse that stick out).

Saturday 15th
Bee Inspection

And then last week we had one sharp, below-freezing night and that killed off any few remaining bees. I'm guessing there weren't enough of them to keep each other warm.

It was very sad to pass by the cold, dead hive for the last week or so and I'd been keeping away from that end of the orchard just because it was such a miserable thing.

But today was sunny, so I opened up the hive to see what I could see.

As expected - a large number of dead bees still in place - sandwiched between the combs (which in itself was spooky - they still looked alive, just very, very still). I found no evidence whatsoever of any brood in any stage which leads me to suspect that the queen indeed died in the November debacle and that's why they'd been dwindling. Presumably any remaining brood was killed by the cold temps that night, so they couldn't ever rear a new queen.

Now, of course, I'm kicking myself. What if I'd been able to get a queen when it happened and put her in place? Would my bees have perhaps survived? But would she have laid eggs in the cooler weather?

They had plenty of stores left and had repaired some of the broken-off combs and rejoined them to their bars (and the neighbouring combs, in most cases, but never mind ).

On the plus side, I opened up the hive for a cursory look and saw one live bee in there. Figured it was just a lone visitor. Went off to feed and muck my horses and came back a couple of hours later to attend to the hive properly and there were bees EVERYWHERE.

Of course, I was all excited, thinking my hive had been resurrected, but then I realised these were all robber bees, helping themselves to the honey combs (some with uncapped honey) and presumably carting it off to their own hive. Excellent!

The visiting bees were all very healthy-looking, so I was happy for them to have found my supply of honey. I'm hoping that if I donate supplies to them, they'll donate a swarm of bees to me later in the year? Hopefully when the time comes, they'll remember where they got all that yummy honey from and come back.

In the meantime, it'll be interesting to see if they take out all the remaining honey - there's about 4-5 combs-worth. I removed the one and half combs that weren't attached and left the rest.

These were my questions to the bee-keeping forum I'm on:

• Could I have re-queened in late November? (or do queens just not "do their thing" if you introduce them at that time of year?)
• If this neighbouring healthy hive chooses to donate bees, would I have to wait until later in the summer for it to happen? (Not sure when bees would likely swarm in the foothills of Northern California)
• Is it unwise to leave the combs of honey in there (the caveat being that I don't mind if these other bees get it)? There were some ants, but I'm hoping they were just after the uncapped honey and once that's gone (removed by the local bees), the capped honey won't attract them further?
• Would I do better to remove all the combs and just leave some empty bars in there with traces of comb on the undersides of them? Would this be more attractive to potential new-home-seekers than complete, but empty, combs?

I'm not sure I can wait until later in the summer (I already started my hive late last year - in June - and fretted over it for the rest of the season). Maybe I'll try and make a second TBH before spring, get some bees to go in it from a local supplier, and leave this hive empty to see if I can attract donor bees later in the summer when swarming time arrives. Someone told me once that two hives side-by-side seem to do better than a single hive (peer pressure?).

Anyway, a sad end to this year's attempt, but hopefully better things to come.

Sunday 16th
Pea-Soup at Cool

pft and I left home in the bright sunshine and drove over to Cool so we could ride in the pea-soup fog. It was like something out of Wuthering Heights with the blowing fog. Fergus was quite spooked by it at times (Uno, not so spooked, since he was in the back). 

Here you see the lovely views that abounded.

Did a good 10+ miles on somewhat sloppy trails - both pones seemed more tender-footed than they have been in a while, but maybe the rocks are pointier at Cool than at Cronin - the trails were definitely sloppier. Oddly, some of the narrow singletrack was in perfect shape, but the main trail was pretty nasty in places.

Best of all, I appear to have my formerly good pone back (as opposed to his evil twin) - Uno behaved impeccably the entire time and we were able to get in some proper trotting.

Oh - and best of all - still light (just) at 5:35 pm. Woo!

Tuesday 18th
Notes to Self on 20 Mule Team 100

• Remember that Uno needs buddy-support in camp for proper eating the day before/night before/afterwards. Park *next* to that buddy in camp.
• Fit boots to feet - is he in size 2 or size 1.5 at the moment? Are you going to glue or use Gloves? If glue, do you have glue? Will you need a heat gun for drying of feet, or can they dry out in a clean stall?
• Get in some regular trims
• Sort out sheepskin on saddle
• Start feeding appropriate diet to pone (add rice bran, beet pulp, LMF, pellets, salt, Dynamite). Do you want him on grass/alf? If so, buy some for him alone.

Saturday 22nd
Overlook > Bus Stop = Sickly

On Saturday, pft and I dropped a car at the Bus Stop, then took Uno and Fergus to the Overlook. It was a toasty day, so we didn't need much clothing... neglected to think of what would happen when we reached our destination and I had to stand in the cold damp grass for an hour while pft went and fetched the truck.

The result was two days in bed, hacking and snuffling and sleeping, followed by a week of sickliness with more hacking and snuffling. I have turned into a drip factory.

T'was a good ride though - pones did great and we added 15 miles to our training. Fergus led almost the entire way à la grownup, and Uno didn't have any melt-downs, although he was a bit twitchy and I still really don't like riding him on drop-offs. They were both barefoot and a little ouchy at times, but not too bad.

Friday 28th
Gravel

When we came home after Joshua Tree at Christmas, we were missing large chunks of driveway. By the end of the month, the driveway was starting to look very sad indeed and I'd gotten to the "scared to drive the trailer on it, lest it slither over the edge", so it was time to spend large sums of money on gravel.
	The steep part on the left is newly gravelled,  the less-steep option on the right is gravelled from last time
The helpful man from the local Bear Creek Quarry brought over two transfer loads (i.e. four truck-loads) and tipped it up the driveway, down the hill to the barn, and on the steepest slope. Sadly, four truck-loads didn't seem to go very far, but at least it's somewhat back under control.
		Before and after - down by the gate.  The rains washed a lot of the gravel down the hill out into the road.
		Before and after - looking up the hill. This was the part that we weren't able to get the truck and trailer up when it was wet.
	Unfortunately, he couldn't get his tipper very close to the barn, so ended up leaving a big pile as close as he could for us to spread later... <sigh>

Saturday 29th
Fun with Honey

The beeless-hive had five combs of honey leftover. I took the two most likely-looking ones and left the other three for the robber bees to enjoy. The robber bees seem to have calmed down, so I might fetch what's left and crush and strain that as well.
	Fetched a "paint strainer" from Home Depot (I had to ask, since I had no idea what one looked like, but had read this is what you could use). A "paint strainer", it turns out, is a mesh bag . They come in one gallon and five gallon sizes. I used the five gallon version. Broke the comb off the bar, dropped it into the bag and smooshed it enthusiastically with my fingers. Result: very sticky Lucy, honey coming out.
	Left the honey suspended in its mesh bag in a sieve overnight. The result was about half an inch of honey in the bottom of my specially purchased two-gallon bucket. Later on, I also tried smooshing it with a pestle, the underside of a cereal bowl, and twisting it as tightly as I could in the mesh bag. This produced a further thin coating in the bottom of the bucket.
	The resulting honey crop from one bar - this is a 15 oz pasta sauce jar. Woo! All utensils used to get honey from bucket to jar needed a thorough licking afterwards. Yum.
	This is Bar #2 which I still need to crush. Thinking, this time I might put it into a ziploc bag for crushing, even though the resulting coating of honey all over my hands from the first comb was quite fun. This comb is strange in that it has a double-thickness part at one end - interesting bee engineering.