Saturday, August 30, 2008

August 30, 2008
This morning, when we were cleaning up the horses, Chaco was finished and in the ox pen. When I came to the fence, he got close so I could get up on his back. I didn't have a cookie at first, so after I put my hand in my pocket and then sat back down on him, he REALLY wanted a cookie.  When I went to hand him the cookie, my hand got into his mouth with the cookie and he bit the expletive out of my fingers.  There was blood involved!  I washed it off with soap and water and put hydrogen peroxide on it.  Then, I found a perfect use for the evil sugar.  I read recently that bacteria can't grow around sugar, so I coated the open wounds with sugar and put bandaids on.  [Editor's note:  Several days later . . . I have never had wounds this deep heal so fast.  Sugar is a miracle drug!]    

:-)

When we fed the horses their lunch today, we found Zekey, the old donkey, laying down in one of the stalls. We couldn't get him to get up. I was able to feed him some horse cookies. Pat and Margot tried putting their hands under his belly and trying to get him up, but he didn't even try. I like the poor ole guy, so I stayed in the stall with him giving him horse cookies. He ate them very slowly. Pat brought some water in a bucket and tried to get him to drink, but he wouldn't. He would only eat horse cookies. Finally, he got up all by himself, and he walked out of the stall into the main yard. We had put some hay in a wheel barrow out there where the other horses couldn't get it. But he walked right on by toward the other side of the yard. We left him out there so he could graze.

After that we all piled into the truck to go look at some Indian ruins. We drove quite a ways out on dirt roads, until Pat pointed out a cool pueblito.  We parked the truck and walked up to the Gould pueblito.  We went inside and took pictures!  Pat said that each pueblito we go to will be progressively more cool.  The next one was called the Citadel.  It was built on this big rock.  We climbed up and looked around.  The views from each of the pueblito were awesome.  Next was the big mama!  It was called Shaft House and it is unusual in that it was a cliff dwelling, which is unusual for the Navajo/Dineh.  On the way to it, we discovered that they were building a new "well pad" close to the pueblito.  The landscape looked like strip mining at best, hit by a bomb at worst.  All the vegetation was gone, and they had piled dirt on the road to the pueblito.  We had to park and walk.  It wasn't far, but it was was a bummer.  I still find it hard to believe that all this drilling is allowed close to the historic and sacred Dineh places.

But, anyway, we got there and saw them situated on the edge of the cliff.  It was so cool.  Another magnificent view, also.  We walked along the rocks and it was a bit scary, but we all made it.  It was many rooms, and we climbed into them.  But the most awesome part was climbing up this narrow passageway straight up into the top story.  Pat had to direct each hand and foot movement.  It was kind of like the wall climbing that I did several years ago, and I enjoyed it.  Pat said I did better than seventeen year old Stefan!

Once up on the top, it was incredible.  They had all these little "windows" of about two inches by four inches . . . just big enough to shoot an arrow through.  Many of them were pointed downward to protect themselves.  One window was pointed downward right to the narrow passageway that we had climbed up.  Supposedly, this is where the Dineh hid or hid their women and children from the Utes.

When we were leaving, I had an interesting "woo woo" experience.  Pat was helping Stefan and Margot down the passageway, so I walked back a little ways and sat under this overhang.  I closed my eyes to see what I could feel.  I felt peaceful and safe (although Pat thought this particular place where I was sitting was scary).  Then, an amazing thing happened.  Suddenly, I felt reiki coming out of my hands.  This has only happened to me once before (reiki coming out without me asking it to) while I was in England at one of their cool stone circle sites.  I felt that maybe someone was "trapped" there, so I tried to direct them to the light.  They felt safe where they were, and resisted, but I kept telling them it was safe and okay.  Then, the reiki stopped.  Shortly after that, Pat and Stefan and Margot came over and we left.  But, it was a very cool experience.  This pueblito is my very favorite one that I have seen since I've been here.

The two pictures . . . the first one is the Citadel.  Isn't it cool how it was all built on top of that rock?  The second one is the Shaft house.  You crawl through that little opening, and then do the wall climbing thing up to the next level.  Very cool.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I saddled Chaco with the Australian saddle because Pat wanted to use the Western saddle.  Stefan wasn't ready to ride yet, so I walked him around the little obstacle course that we have, and then I taught him to stand up on this pallet that is out in the yard.  Yesterday, I could only get his front feet up there, but today, I got him to stand up there with all four feet.  I wanted to teach him to turn around in a circle, but Pat thought it was too small for that.  But, she thought it was cool that I got him standing up there.

When Stefan was ready, we went into the ox pen and he mounted up.  As soon as Pat started walking him, Chaco kind of went ballistic, Stefan did an emergency dismount, and then Chaco reared up!  That is when a horse stands up on his hind legs.  It wasn't real high, but it was higher than I've seen him do before.  Stefan said that he had intuition that Chaco wasn't calm and he could see himself going into the steel fence, so he had kept his hand ready on the saddle to push himself off.  Which was good, because Chaco was not a happy camper at all!  Pat noticed that the saddle had pushed his skin forward, and when Stefan was on the saddle, it was probably pinching his neck and hurting him.  Pat had Stefan give her a few leg ups and she lay across the saddle so he doesn't get the idea that he can get people off that way.

Then we watched Hidalgo.