Making Foals with Science

Last year I decided to breed my then- three-year-old filly, Faith, because, apparently having five horses only one of whom was ridable, was not stupid enough.

In my defense, that wasn’t the real reason.  It was a purely emotional decision.

Lucy and Faith in matching fly masks.
Faith was about two weeks old.

It was a very bad period. My elderly Mom was in the hospital and possibly dying, one of the horses was injured and likely needed to be euthanized and my old dog was failing.

Good times.

Three years prior when I first bred Lucy I simply went on the stallion version of Tinder and searched for the traits I was looking to pass on to the baby: good mover? Check. Great jumper? Check. Amateur friendly? Triple Check. When I found  a stallion with all the boxes checked, I swiped right, metaphorically speaking. (In real life I signed a contract and sent a money wire.)

 The stallion sent a Fed Ex of frozen semen and when Lucy came into heat, my veterinarian impregnated her. The only complication was that it was a Canadian stallion and the import forms for the semen were hilarious. I wish I’d saved them.

11 months later, out popped Faith. In my entire lifetime of horse owning I have never so  much fun as I’ve had with Faith. I met her when she was 20 minutes old, she had her first peppermints a few weeks later and we have been bonded ever since.

Time will tell if Faith has the talent it takes to win on A show circuit but that doesn’t really matter. She is like a giant puppy. When she lived in my backyard, my real giant puppy, Jasper, would throw his toys to her, and she’d gamely pick them up and shake them back at him. She is a hoot.

So, last year when my life went ass over tea kettle, I decided to try and replicate the experience.  

Because everything went so smoothly to get Faith, I thought that this would be easy.

Of course it wasn’t. Immediately after Faith was born I tried again with two different stallions. One was a tall, dark, sexy European. Typical of tall, dark Europeans, it was a rude experience .There were no guarantees of satisfaction; I paid my money and took my chances. It turned out that the hot European was shooting blanks. Shocking, I know.

So I chose again.  The second stallion was a tall, dark sexy European immigrant living in Northern California and was far more laid back. He also came with a live foal guarantee.  Yay!

Lucy, it turns out, got (and gets) pregnant practically with a sideways glance from a fertile stallion, but because she is older (23) and has Cushings Disease, she can’t maintain a pregnancy and would probably die if she did. So with Annaliese, my enabling friend who breeds sport horses professionally, we put together a plan.

Since I had this really nice stallion breeding, and Lucy was a really nice mare who gets knocked up at the drop of a hat, why not do an embryo transplant into Faith? Why not indeed?

 It made perfect sense. Particularly after a bottle or so of good Cabernet.

A smarter person might have sobered up and said, “No, no, I have more than enough horses and I don’t need another mouth to feed.”

I am not that person. 

The idea was to wait until Faith was three and then breed her. The key to this working was getting Lucy and Faith to ovulating at the same time.

That involved drugs, (particularly Regumate, which helps regulate mares’ cycle), and numerous vet checks. Initially whenever one mare was in heat, the other wasn’t. It took a while, but eventually they were both certified by vets to be in sync.  Winning!

When the girls were ready, the stallion, who lives in Northern California, had to be collected morning the semen same day via Fed Ex to the vet clinic where Lucy was waiting. Bada bing, bada boom. Done.

I took Lucy home after the event, (which really does involve something that looks like a baster ) and we waited.

A couple of anxious weeks later both girls returned to the clinic. Dr. Richard and Dr. Hannah did some hocus pocus with Lucy and removed an embryo. I got to see it. It was a dot surrounded by a chain of smaller dots.  

The embryo. It doesn't look like much, but once
 upon a time you looked like this too.

More magic happened and the tiny dot was transferred into Faith. Both horses went home to their respective pastures feeling very confused, and possibly violated.

I came home and had a drink. It might have been more than one.

After 30 days, Dr. Hannah visited Faith and detected a heartbeat! Annaliese, Dr. Hannah and I were ecstatic, Faith begged for mints. She got a handful.

A heartbeat!

Faith then spent three months of the summer in Santa Ynez being saddle trained. She was perfect. 

Because she was pregnant, instead of sending her directly into training, I sent her back to her Three Wishes’ pasture to think about what she’d learned, grow up and have her baby.

While she was in Santa Ynez, she picked up a nasty virulent bacterial infection that is also super contagious. In order that she didn’t infect Annaliese’s entire herd, Faith came home to my backyard for three months.

Her mother ,Lucy, wasn’t glad to see her, but I had a blast. Except for all the times she took the gates off the hinges and paced outside my kitchen door begging for snacks.

Faith got better with no residual scars. Then she got really pregnant. Horses carry for 11 months, and this last month has sucked for her. Like many expectant moms, her ankles are swollen and she is miserable. She groans a lot and is very depressed. She even spits out peppermints which makes me depressed.

She is technically due on March 19, but any second would be good for both of us. Most times horses deliver at night. They are prey animals, and if the foals are born at night, it gives the babies time to get their legs underneath them and learn to nurse before daylight and predators find them.

The closest Faith has ever come to a predator is when Jasper barks at her. Still, I’m sleeping with the phone by the bed.

Cross your fingers that when the call comes and the baby is born it stands on four straight legs and nurses.

Faith three months pregnant.

I really do not need another horse I can’t ride, but I can’t wait to meet him or her when he arrives.

Duck, Duck, Goose, Great Dane?

The world is messed up, and I feel helpless to do anything to make it better. I find myself cursing humans every day. It doesn't help. The reality is that I have a small skill set and can’t do much, but I can drive. Which is why I volunteer to do transport for the California Wildlife Center.

The CWC is a terrific non-profit that handles native California wildlife that have been injured or orphaned. In the spring and fall, there are zillions of wild infants and babies from raptors to baby possums and squirrels crowding their clinic. This time of year, it’s usually injured birds: crows, ducks and geese that need surgery or supportive care.

What I do is pretty basic. I pick up critters in my area from a participating veterinarian or two LA Valley animal shelters and deliver the animals to the CWC with the accompanying paperwork.

Pretty simple. I can handle it.

The vet is home base for Hot Vet. Google him. Trust me, he is. Really hot. Featured in "People Magazine" hot. I never run into him.

Naturally, where I got into trouble is the East Valley Animal Shelter. The pound.

When I started volunteering for CWC I asked the head of the program if they provided a stipend for all the animals I’d adopt because I had to enter a shelter. She laughed assuming I was joking. I wasn’t.

Actually, I blame Facebook for my current problem. (Aren't most issues in 2018 Facebook's fault? I’m talking to you Sheryl Sandberg.)  I follow Facebook page called Southern California Great Dane Rescue. I know. Stupid idea. Mostly I joined because, like the CWC, occasionally animals need to be moved from place to place, and like I said, I can drive. I do the same for the American Brittany Rescue. 

About three weeks ago a female Great Dane came into the East Valley Shelter as a “stray.’ (Turns out the person who ‘found’ her, was her owner. Awful, but not unusual.) The tho bio listed her as six years old, which is not young for a Dane, severely underweight, with some medical problems. Oh, she also wasn't spayed. And, as if she didn't have enough problems,  they were calling her "FeFe."

Obviously she was calling out to me.

She had been haunting me, mostly due to her ill health and her age.  (She’s also black. Black dogs don’t photograph well and are the last to find homes.) Old dogs fair badly at shelters and often die there.

By the way, I love old dogs. I have adopted a bunch of them over the years and they’ve been universally great. They sometimes don’t live for long, but they have a great life while they are with me. I have wonderful memories of every single one.

The smart part of me had been avoiding the shelter like the plague.

It was working until  Friday morning I received a text from the CWC,  a Canada Goose with a broken wing needed to be picked up.  Of course it was at the East Valley Shelter. Uh-oh.

You don’t need to be a genius to know what happened next. I prefer think it was fate, not stupidity. 

Maybe it’s both.

While I waited for the officers to get the goose (I am nuts, but responsible, business first!) I asked about the "FeFe" which by the way, is a poodle name. Not a Great Dane name.

.She was a shelter favorite – all the officers knew and liked her. She had some tumors including an ugly one on her lady parts and was on medical hold. So I needed to speak to the Superevisor.

The Supervisor needed to speak to the medical staff before she could authorize anything, so with the goose in a box and the Supervisor’s cell number in my pocket, I headed out to drop of the goose. When I called the Shelter that afternoon, the Supervisor was driving home from work but was pleased to talk to me. She approved everything, and told me I could pick up FeFe the next day.

I came  at a time a friend who volunteers with the Rescue Train (a GREAT organization that helps people keep their pets. Google and please donate to them!) would be there. because I really can't going into the back of a pound. That was important.

Laurie found a volunteer who was delighted that I’d come for the Dane. Together they walked me to her pen for our meeting. Past rows of sweet looking, terrified dogs.

It felt like a Tinder date . I was nervous. Would she look like her picture? Would I like her? Would she like me?

I shouldn’t have worried. Dogs I get. People not so much.

But like an online date, she was older than advertised. Closer to eight than five, she is a sweet, gentle dog.  She is small, dainty even, for a Dane. Even after being stuffed with food for three weeks, she is severely underweight. Her backbone juts out like a e supermodel. Her once-black muzzle is now a mask of gray.

I had a instant, serious crush.

The officers took her away to vaccinate, chip and do paperwork while I stood in line to fill out my paperwork. It took almost an hour. Which is not a long time when you a completely changing two lives.

She climbed into my SUV with a little help, stretched out and immediately fell asleep. I think she snored a little.

On the way home I changed her name to Fiona, after the only celebrity I stalk: the underweight gray baby hippo in the Cincinnati Zoo.

My Fiona may be old and gray but she’s not done. When we got home she hopped out and met the other dogs politely. Within an hour she and Jasper were chasing each other around the backyard at full speed. Dalai joined in and out of the zoomies. Once Fiona was going so fast she jumped over Dalai so she wouldn't crash into her.


Yes, there is video. https://youtu.be/grESRXAJSC4

Since her arrival, there have been a few squabbles, which I expected, but nothing serious. She has been a champ. After a few complaints, she has claimed her giant crate as her own. 

She mostly respects the random, changeable, rules that Poppy, Dalai and Jasper throw at her.

The morning after she came, I left her locked in her crate when I left to ride. Four hours later, when I came back, all four dogs greeted me at the door; the pack had sprung her from prison.

They are a newly bonded pack. I may be in trouble.

I don’t know how long we will be together. There are never any guarantees in life. But I love her about and she seems delighted to be here.

I can't do much to fix the world. But I did do this.

“Saving one animal will not change the world, but for that animal, it changes everything.”

Faith is a Jerk

Faith at the Young Horse Show

It’s a fact that you really never know someone until you live with them. This is particularly true with horses.

That sweet, kind equine you’ve ridden, groomed and played with every day for years at the stable turns into a beast when it moves into the backyard. 

The quiet, gentle pony transforms into a boss mare or want-to-be stallion. They turn feral when the farrier comes and no one can catch them while the vet is waiting to do vaccinations with the clock ticking.

This has become increasingly obviously now that Faith is temporarily living at home.

Faith is my baby. Actually she’s Lucy’s baby. But I have been intimately involved in her entire life, from picking out her father to the present.  We met when she was 30 minutes old I've seen her almost weekly since then.Almost immediately she was attached to me like Velcro.

Just Born

It might be because she quickly figured out that when I appeared, so did peppermints and carrots. 

One Day Old

When she was tiny she would even leave her BFF Conamor to visit with me.

Faith and Conamor

When she was older, if I called her, she’d charge from whatever corner of her pasture she was hiding in to skid to a halt in front of me. She hasn’t hit me.  Yet.

So I thought I knew her. I was wrong.

What I didn’t know was that Faith is a jerk.

It may be the hormones -she is scheduled to be a teen mom, due in February. But I don’t think so.

I think she is just kind of clueless. To be fair, she is just three.

She is still a jerk.

Of course, Faith may be channeling the spirit of Dezi, who died a few months back. I adored him, but he was a certified jerk. Verging on an asshole.

Like Dezi, when I clean the barn, Faith follows me around. Maybe she thinks she’s helping. More likely, she is pointing out where I’ve missed a spot, or have failed to fluff the shavings properly.

She is always in the middle of stuff. Whatever is going on, she is right there pushing her way to the front to see what’s happening and getting in the way.

She’s always been that way. Bossy. So much so, that eventually she was yanked from the field of young horses and turned out with a group of old crabby broodmares to teach her some manners. She quickly learned to show them respect.

With her mom, not so much.

When I brought Faith home, there was no joyous mother and child reunion. It was more like Lucy rolled her eyes and moaned, “Damn, you again?”

Mother and Child Reunion

Typically, Faith didn’t notice. She just barged around the paddock. For a while she even pushed Talen around, shoving past him to get to the best hay or the snack first.

Initially he didn’t react. I think he was in shock. Nobody had ever pushed him around before. 

At first, Faith, being somewhat clueless didn’t notice when he pinned his ears and snarked at her. Then one morning she was covered with teeth marks. After that, she let Talen have first crack at the alfalfa and carrots.  

In her defense. She is bored. She is three and Lucy and Talen are dull. Talen is relatively young, but since he is quite lame at anything but a walk, running and bucking are rare.

Faith does her best to get her old pasture mates to play. She charges around the paddock squealing and bucking. Talen will canter a few steps and quit. Lucy doesn’t even try.

So I guess it's to be expected that Faith has turned her energy to a different direction. Like escaping.

Electric fencing surrounds the entire paddock. It was necessary because Dezi had the ability to open every gate ever made. So on top of the wire, all the gates are chained with double snaps.

Faith found another way out: she lifts the gate off its hinges and squishes or jumps through the space into the back yard. The first morning I found her wandering the destroyed yard, she was so proud of herself she galloped up whinnying.

After stuffing her back in the paddock, I rehung the gate and tied it closed with baling twine. What was I thinking?

That night around midnight I heard banging on the back porch. It was Faith, peering in the kitchen window. She obviously expected me to let her in the house.

Unlike Dezi, who always brought his posse with him when he escaped, she was alone. The others had stayed in the field either reluctant to jump the downed gate in the dark, or they were glad to have her somewhere else.

There I was in my pajamas dragging the  her back to paddock and tying the gate up again. I used rope this time.

The next day I went to Lowes and bought all sorts of hardware. That night she got the hinges off, but couldn’t move the gate. She was so frustrated she kicked it for a while before giving up and sulking in a corner.

I adore her, but I am counting the days until she can go back to Three Wishes to have her baby. I will miss her. Most of the time.

Because she is a jerk. But she is less of one there. Or so I can pretend.

Me and Faith

California Is Burning. Take Care of Your Pets

Unless you have been living under a rock, or are Donald J. Trump, you have probably heard that California is burning.

(A couple of things to note: the areas in Southern California that went up are not forests. Mostly they are densely populated areas. The wild lands -most of which is federally owned and controlled- are covered with scrub and desert-like plants. Again, not forest.

Unless you can figure out a way to log a tumbleweed, in which case, I would like to meet with you, these aren’t big moneymakers.)

Anyway.

In general, I’m not a fearful person. Okay, I am afraid of heights and I don’t like scary movies and snakes give me the willies. I manage my anxiety by avoiding them. Easy.

Fire is different. Fire terrifies me.  It’s also inevitable. At least in drought-stricken, climate changed California.

Since I’ve lived in in the Golden State, there have been numerous huge conflagrations. I’m lucky enough that most have not affected me personally.

Some have. Over the last 15 years, I’ve had to evacuate my horses from large commercial boarding stables at least ten times.

I’ve discovered that the Southern California horse community is amazing .When fire threatens, people with rigs, big and small, help out. The horses get moved. Day and middle of the night.

When the worst happens, and horses die, the entire community joins together and mourns.

I’ve helped evacuate horses (mine and others), when the flames were across the street, and the helicopters were just above our heads. I’ve also done it before evacuation orders were given, but the fire was moving fast.

The latter is definitely better.

Then you have time to label every halter with the horse’s name and barn using duct tape and a Sharpie. This is important because sometimes in the chaos, horses are separated from their barns. 

With time you can gather buckets for feed and water. You can grab meds. Sometimes you even have time to load up saddles and bridles.

That’s when you have time.

When you don’t, horses  get stuffed onto any available trailer and sent to wherever there is room. In big Los Angeles area fires, that can be as far away as Antelope Valley or the Del Mar Fairgrounds near San Diego. A single trip can take hours.

You don’t always have hours.

During this last event, people and horses fell into both catagories, depending on their location. The bottom line is, when hell is breaking out, the job is simply to keep the livestock breathing. 

Everything else is secondary. You can buy new tack, blankets and tack trunks.

One of the mantras we hear in California is to have an evacuation plan. Mostly people think about preparedness in terms of earthquakes. For me, it’s all about the fires.

I believe that if you have animals -and this means you too, folks with chickens, pigs, goats, and guinea pigs- you have to have a way to get them to safety. You don’t get to expect anyone else to do this for you.

This seems like common sense.

Apparently it’s not. A surprising number of people, think someone is going to materialize out of the ether and pick up and care for their pets.

Sometimes that happens, but how dare you take the risk. Seriously, how dare you?

In the last few days I have heard people whine, and whine, and whine: I don’t have a trailer. What am I supposed to? Where am I going to put the chickens?  The pony doesn’t load. I don’t know if the goats will lead. I don’t know who to call.

So I’m going to spell out what to do. By the way, this works in flood zones too.

When there are fires in your area, and they are reasonably close , (or floods are predicted), get the animal crates out and set them up. If you have chickens or uncooperative cats,  rabbits or whatever, put them inside. Gather enough food for a couple of days and put near the animals.

If you have horses or other large livestock (sheep, goats, pigs, alpacas, etc), contact someone with a trailer and tell them you might need them soon. If you don’t know anyone, call your local animal control – they have lists of evacuators. Do this sooner than later.  You should have a list of numbers in your phone long before the fire. Like now.

After you’ve contacted someone, but before you need them: pull together water buckets, pails with grain, medications and supplements. Put it next to the chicken crates. Put the animals in a stall with halters on. Write your name and phone number with a sharpie on the halter AND your horse’s hooves. Make sure there is a lead rope.

If your horse hasn’t shipped recently or is a bad loader, get Ace and put it in a syringe outside the stall. If push comes to shove that horse has to get on the trailer in less than 5 minutes, or it’s going to be left behind. Yours is not the only horse this person is trying to help. No one has time to dick around.

Have everything else already in your car so you can follow the trailer when it leaves. The hauler will not feed and settle your horse in a stall when it gets to its temporary home. Taking care of your animals  is your job. Remember when you leave an evacuation area after that trailer, it is unlikely that you are going to be allowed back.

That means, before shit gets real, pull together a ‘bug out’ bag for yourself. A couple of days clothing, pills, and anything you don’t want to lose. Put it in your car/truck. I also loaded my photograph albums, and paintings of my horses. And my computer. That was it. It all went into my truck. Just in case.

When the smoke started billowing up over the next hill over, I caught my canaries (who usually live in a roomy flight zone) and stuffed them in a parakeet cage. The cat went into a crate. They were plopped by the front door.

They weren’t happy, but they would have been really pissed if they burned.

If push came to shove, I didn’t have to think. Everything was set. Did I forget stuff? I’m sure, but would we have all survived? Yes.

I was really, really, lucky this time. The amazing firefighters hit the fire hard and knocked it down in three hours.

When it was over, I unpacked the truck, unhitched the trailer, let the cat loose and moved the canaries back to their aviary.

Then I took a deep breath and poured myself a glass of bourbon.

Was it all a pain in the ass? Yes. Would I do it again? Absolutely.

Not So Privileged Anymore

I am privileged.

 I am a white, straight, older, Jewish woman. I grew up in a liberal New England town. I went to a private school that was practically a poster for diversity.

 

I didn’t know that; it was just life. My life. A privileged one.

When I was a kid I used to get annoyed when my dad, (whose WWII Army service interrupted his college career at UVA, Charlottesville), would talk with pride about the success of this or that Jewish person. If a football player, or a Senator was Jewish it was a Very. Big. Deal.

I didn’t understand.

Who cared if someone was Jewish or not? It wasn’t important in my world. My friends were black, white, Christian, Muslim, straight and gay. All that mattered was that they were good, fun and smart. Mostly smart.

That’s all I thought anyone cared about.

I was wrong.

The first time I was called a kike, I literally did not know what it meant.  I had to ask a friend. She blushed when she told me. “It’s a dirty word,” she whispered.

By the time an athlete I worshiped and knew,  used the word, I understood. I was also devastated – she wasn’t referring to me, she didn’t even know I was Jewish. But that she had the word in her vocabulary, and used it, gutted me.

Still, I just filed the information and moved on.

I went to work in the music industry, where being Jewish was commonplace and really no one cared. Or if they did, they kept it to themselves.

At that time it was far more traumatic being female than Jewish. Decades before #metoo,  women who wanted to keep their jobs kept their mouths shut and heads down. We just grimaced at the radio promotion guys’  jokes.  Which weren’t funny at all.

But that was the way it was.

I am actively liberal. I’ve worked hard on rallies for choice. I march. And, most important, I vote. In. Every. Single. Election.

I raise a stink when black men are mowed down for existing, and LGBTQ, Muslim and others have their rights threatened. 

I never thought I was one of them.

That’s privilege.

When anti-Semitism started coming out of the shadows in Europe, I felt sick, but figured I’d vote my conscience with my wallet and never go to those places. I could live without traveling to France, Italy and Spain. I don’t shop at Chik- fil-a, Wal-Mart or Hobby Lobby. I thought that was enough.

It's not.

Shortly after a Jewish Center near me was shot up by an anti-Semite with an assault rifle was the first time I attended High Holy Day services with TSA-style metal detectors and armed guards at the door. It was disturbing but I felt safe. The horror of that attack  had to be the result of a single lunatic. That wasn’t MY America.

I was wrong.

Charlottesville woke me up.  The President of the United States proclaimed that there were “good people on both sides.” But one side were Nazis and the other peaceful protesters.

I finally got angry. How dare he try and take my country, away?  He’s the fucking President. He’s supposed to represent ALL of us.

He doesn’t. 

Between the dog whistles and not-so-very-coded language Trump repeatedly makes it clear that he and his followers believe the country belongs to them and only to them. He speaks to his base, and they are the basest: white supremacists.

I love this country, it’s been good to me and my family and we’ve been good to it. I want the US to be the best it can be. And make no mistake, it can always get better. Everything and everyone can always improve.

Apparently the United States no longer loves me. For the first time in my life, I feel unsafe here.

In supermarkets (Krogers), legal demonstrations (Huntington Beach) and yes, places of worship (Sutherland Springs, Pittsburgh) people who aren’t white Christians are under attack.

The perpetrators are not the bogeymen that our current government portrays and brays about. These 

fanatics are not militant Islamists, or some vague turban-wearing strangers.

These very real terrorists are familiar. They are angry, Fox News, Breitbart and Daily Stormer believing, white men. They carry legally obtained weapons of war, AK-45s. And they are killing people who they feel are taking something from them.

I’ve read and paid attention to history. So I am afraid the time is coming that there will be a Kristallnacht somewhere in this country. I am afraid of the day when angry white men board a bus and demand to know who is Jewish or Muslim and then kill them.

Maybe this is hyperbole. Maybe I’m being hysterical in reaction to the ever–increasing daily insanity of the current administration and its effort to dismantle the Constitution and Bill of Rights. But maybe not.

Maybe this is EXACTLY how Hitler came to power.

I don’t know.

But I do know, I don’t feel so privileged anymore.

It's Not A Pet, It's A Horse. And Other Lies

 Many, many, many years ago, when I was about 12 and lucky get my first horse, my father sat me down and sternly said, “This is, a horse, not a pet.”

I adored my Dad, but he didn’t know me at all. Actually he did, he and knew I wasn’t listening.

Fast forward to six years ago.

I was the proud owner of three horses. One was

Murphy and Dezi

ridable. The other two, Murphy and Dezi had one job:  they had to look glad to see me when I visited them weekly at their retirement farm. And brought 25 pounds of carrots.They handled this brilliantly. They would whinny and saunter up to me. It was enough.

I'd bought Murphy when he was 12 to be my show horse. Before he transitioned into a show hunter, he’d had a failed career in racing. At 18 he developed neurological issues that made him unsafe to ride, so I retired him.

Finding a place to park old horses isn’t as easy as it appears. The first place I found for Murphy was a disaster. The field was big, but the weeds were sparse and contrary to what was promised, the horses weren’t fed supplementary hay. Every time I drove away Murphy would  follow my car, running and screaming after me.  He lost almost 200 pounds in four months there. This was 13 years ago, and I’m still furious.

The next farm, however, was horse heaven. Big pastures. Shade trees. Food. And care.  Great care.

I eventually paid to build a three-sided shed for him to escape the elements, but it was worth every penny. Murphy made the transition into retirement with gusto. He was paired with an old mare, and they were a darling old couple.

I bought Dezi (who I showed as Babaloo) when Lucy had her first serious injury and was sidelined for almost a year. He was an old warrior- a European jumper who had been there and done that. I didn’t really know how old he was, but a German clinician saw his breeder’s brand and told me that style had been obsolete for about two decades. Draw your own conclusions.

I knew when I bought Dezi that he wasn’t going to be my riding horse for long; the vet had predicted a maximum of two years.  I rode him for three, and then he joined Murphy in the field. The old mare was long gone and while Dezi didn’t take to retirement with Murphy’s enthusiasm, he adjusted. Dezi became the field boss.

My equine herd is why, when I was forced to move from my (paid off) home in North Hollywood, I looked for horse property. I wanted, no, needed a place to keep my Boys where I could enjoy them daily, instead a few hours on the weekend.

With a little help from my friends, I found almost ¾ an acre (in Los Angeles, this IS horse property) in the western San Fernando Valley. It had a seven stall barn and an arena. I turned two of the stalls into in-and-outs with the arena as a paddock. (The other stalls are for hay and shavings storage. NOT horses.)

There was also a cute little house. I barely looked at it; this place was bought for the Boys and dogs.

They loved it. Retirement AND they got to see me all the time!  And most of the time, I was feeding them. Or giving them snacks. Jackpot!

Dezi was the king of the field. And the yard

.

No matter how much time you spend with your horses, when they are boarded, you don’t really know them. I had no idea how wily Dezi was. With a touch of sneaky. Almost immediately he learned how to breach every gate.

That first year, I’d wake up in the morning and regularly find the Boys waiting on my back porch.  Pissed that breakfast was late.

I invested in  chains and double end snaps for all the gates and teamed them with solar powered hot wire fences. That mostly worked to keep the Boys safely inside the paddock. But Dezi never stopped trying. If gates were left unchained, he was out.

By the time Murphy died, Christmas two years ago, Lucy had joined the Boys. But even my incredibly bossy mare, was no match for Dezi. He ruled the paddock with an iron hoof. He checked every pile of hay before deciding which one he’d eat. If he was napping, the others stood guard. Where he walked, they followed.

Dezi loved people and was very sweet. He’d follow me around the paddock when I was mucking the barn, just to hang out. (Or maybe to ]ensure I was doing a good job.) He loved being scratched and adored babies. When people brought infants to see him, he would carefully lean in and sniff them gently.

This summer was rough on Dez. It was brutally hot. There was a week that it reached 118 degrees. In an effort to keep the gang cool, I bought an industrial standing fan in addition to their stall fans.

They loved it. All three (Talen, my most recent retired show horse joined the herd last spring) would line up in front of it, their manes and tails blowing in the wind. They looked like an equine shampoo commercial.

Talen, a relative youngster at 13, barged in and took control.  Dezi didn’t give up easily; he always sported a nip or cut, but it wasn’t serious and Talen had bite marks as well. They figured it out.

Maybe because of the heat, or the competition, this summer Dezi suddenly got old. 

As recently as last spring he was a fat, shiny boy. But now no matter how much food I stuffed into him, his backbone, hips and ribs jutted out. But he still seemed pretty happy.

Three mornings ago when I went to feed breakfast Dezi was hobbling. He was unable to walk without considering each and every step. I poured pain meds into him and locked him in a stall, which made him miserable and didn’t ease his pain

.

It was time. He and I have been together for more than eleven years. He was my pet for eight years. 

It wasn’t enough.

Where Have All the Clean (Big) Sheets Gone?

There’s a fine line between being completely reasonable and Tom Hanks-like, and going all Joan Crawford screaming about wire clothes hangers. I think I’m about to cross it.

About bed linens.

I like to think of myself as a pretty reasonable person. (Okay, maybe not about the current occupant of 1600) Or that’s the way I used be.

When it comes to big issues like familial cancer, friends nearly dying and mortality I’m pretty solid. I deal, okay, compartmentalize, and function appropriately. I don't panic and can be counted on in a crisis.

It’s the little things that are going to lead me to walk in front of a bus. Like sheets.

This is a first world problem. I am well aware of how lucky I am to have small problems

Still.

Since Mom’s permanent home is in the Berkshires of New England, where as of mid-March it is still snowing, she spends the winter with me in Los Angeles. Mom is mobility challenged, which is medical-speak for the fact that she is confined to a wheelchair.

Mom’s pretty easy; she has a good sense of humor and deals with her disability much better than I would. The problem really isn't her.

The thing is these days Mom comes with a series of aides. Don't get me wrong. I am completely grateful to them. The ladies are pleasant, kind and put up with Mom, me, four obnoxious dogs and they rarely complain. Neither Mom nor I could function without them. We are blessed.

But.

I’m used to living by myself. At least as alone as one can be when you live with Great Danes, Brittanys and keep horses in the back yard.

Living alone is good. I can nap without feeling guilty. I can put stuff down and it stays there until I move it. I can watch really shitty television without being judged and I don’t have to slink out to my office to listen to music loud. Oh, and I can cuss a lot. 

After four months I’m getting used to some things like sharing my tiny space and all of the associated inconveniences. I dare say I’m even pretty good about it, though I miss swearing. 

What is going to break me are sheets. There, I said it again. Sheets.

It seems so simple, even logical to me. Mom’s room has a queen sized bed with a brand-new mattress. (Because the Danes ate the old one…) In her closet are shelves with sheets. Queen-sized sheets. For her bed.

In the hall is a linen closet. With towels and sheets for my king-sized bed. (Don’t be like that – I share that bed with Great Danes.) While my sheets fit Mom’s bed, hers do not work on mine. There are a three sets of sheets for each bed, with a few extras including blankets and pillows.

So how come last night I ended up wrapped in a one dog blanket and a horse cooler I won many years ago?

I am not exactly suffering, though my feet did get a little chilly around 2AM. But the missing sheets are driving me crazy and making me a bit cranky. Especially since it’s been raining, which means that the dogs make the bed filthy and I’d like to put on clean sheets.

Okay I'm really cranky. Like insanely crazy

I just hope that when you spot me wandering the streets of Chatsworth barefoot and clutching a torn, dirty sheet and screaming "WHERE DID ALL THE SHEETS GO?, " you will understand. Or at least point me towards Bed, Bath & Beyond and hand me a 20 % off coupon.