The state of the pasture

This could be the first spring in the eight-year history of this blog that I do not write a whiny post 

about locoweed. All the grass that grew from all the rain that fell last summer seems to have 

choked out the growth of the evil plant...for now anyway. I scour the pasture each evening 

in search of my nemesis but have yet to find any. I know I shouldn't be saying that out loud.

I am finding many more burrows than usual, which I assume means there are 

many more animals out and about. I steer clear of the holy land when I'm walking, 

as do the equines, for we know what evil lurks there.

At first glance, I thought I'd come upon another rattlesnake, but it was just coyote poop.

The coyote left a gift for the rabbit living in this hole. How sweet.

I'm finally seeing some positive results from my multi-year battle against the cholla cactus. 

There are few new cholla sprouts to pull, so my current campaign is focused on kicking down 

the dead stuff. It gives me something to do while I wait for the locoweed to show up.

Thursday night in the pasture with Smooch

 I wandered around pulling locoweed...

 ...while Smooch sat in the Ranger...

...and kept a lookout for the herd.

Livin' la vida loco ... again

Ten days ago I wrote, "...if it's green, it's good, unless it's locoweed, which I have yet to spot this year."

As if on cue, the evil weed has since appeared. What's the big deal about locoweed, you ask? 

Here's what could happen if my precious equines develop a taste for it: "...altered gaits, aimless wanderings, 
sometimes in circles, impaired vision (to the extent they bump into things or fall into arroyos or other depressions) 
and erratic behavioral changes. They may appear listless or complacent, then wildly overreact to some unexpected event. 
'Locoed' horses are unsafe to ride or be around, and there is no antidote for the toxin."

So, yeah, the emergence of locoweed is kind of a big deal here every spring.

As near as I can tell, this year's crop isn't as prolific in as previous years. 

I'm hoping to keep it under control with the pulling-it-by-hand method, 

as opposed to the hire-the-guy-with-the-sprayer method.
I spent yesterday's lunch break bending-pulling-repeating and will likely spend the next few weeks
doing the same, listening to many audiobooks and getting lots of exercise.

When I returned to the house with my pail of weeds, Smooch begged me to let her go on the next expedition. 

How could I possibly say no?

So we took our evening walk in the pasture. Smooch got a taste of her own medicine 

as I had to stop every 20 yards or so – not to pee, of course, but to pull locoweeds.

The stuff is fairly easy to spot, with its purple flowers contrasting against the mostly dormant grass.

It wouldn't be such a bad job ... if there were only a few acres to cover. 

I won't rest easy until I've walked up and down the whole ranch, pulling every stinkin' one I see. 

The herd met up with us on their way out to the back 40 after dinner. 

Of course they were curious as to the contents of the pail...

...so curious that Lucy grabbed a locoweed and ran off with it, and while I was chasing her,
Hank dumped the pail over, and I had Smooch's leash in one hand and the camera in the other, and all hell broke loose. 

I'm not even sure who took this picture. It's going to be a crazy couple of weeks around here.

Going, going, gone

Day 2 of the tree thinning and meadow restoration of the 7MSN ranch was equally as exciting as Day 1. 

Were it not for the deadlines imposed by my paying job, I could easily have spent the entire day 

raptly watching as the Hydro-Ax made mincemeat out of my trees.

Witnessing a machine chew up and swallow a tree in less than five minutes never gets old.

And seeing the vistas open up, and imagining the shredded trees decomposing and enriching the soil, 

and the grass growing ... what can I say? It's every rancher woman's dream.

As if this weren't enough excitement for one week, Mr. Herbicide Sprayer 

will arrive today to commence the eradication of this year's crop of locoweed.

So last night, in the blessed drizzling rain, I marked the areas he would need to spray. 

I started out with 100 cute little yellow flags and used up every stinkin' one

outlining the patches of locoweed.

I took a crayon and a printout of Google Earth's satellite view of the ranch with me

so I could also plot the locoweed patches on a map.

Call me obsessive-compulsive. You wouldn't be the first to do so.

Heaven forbid Mr. Locoweed Sprayer should miss a spot.

Anyway, between the lumberjacks and the locoweed and two sick cats this week, 

I've been a little pre-occupied and distracted.

Which is my excuse for driving through the electric fence gate last night at the conclusion of my locoweed-marking expedition. 

Whoops. Thank goodness that a) the fence was turned off, b) the rollbars got slapped in the face instead of me,
c) I had my camera with me to document my stupidity, and d) enough rain fell that there was mud on the tires.

Please don't eat the locoweed

It was inevitable. All the snow that fell on New Mexico in December brought out a bumper crop of locoweed this spring. I was expecting it and preparing for it, but still was totally bummed out to see it in my pasture. For the last few weeks, I've been trying to convince myself that it was only growing around the edges of my land and that I'd be able to keep it in check by pulling it out by hand. Last night, I realized I was kidding myself.

(If you're a relative newcomer to the 7MSN, here is the definitive post on why locoweed makes us crazy. You can also click on "locoweed" in the list of labels at the bottom of this page to see every pathetic post I've written about the subject.)

Though not as prolific as the 2010 crop, the locoweed this year is abundant. 

The good news is that Lucy and the boys are not at all interested in tasting it.

I followed each of them around the pasture last night to see what would happen when they grazed near a patch of locoweed. 

All of them literally turned up their noses and moved on to eat the grass.

George: Excuse me? Why is that gate closed?

Me: Because it's easier to keep an eye on you guys and what you're eating when you're closer to the house, that's why.

Bubba, the licensed weed-killer who sprayed the pasture in 2010, will be coming back soon to eradicate the locoweed 

before it goes to seed, then the herd will be confined to a small, locoweed-free area for a month 

while the "Grazon P+D" does its thing. 

If Alan looks mad now, wait until you see him then.

Filling up the extra hour

As much as I whine about time changes, I am loving the extra hour of daylight this week. 

There's time after my work day is done to walk Smooch and hang out with the herd. 

Not that they would notice since they're too busy eating the trees because the grass isn't growing yet, 

but that's a good thing (the tree eating) and the subject of another post.

Anyway, as I've been hanging out with the herd this week, waiting for them to raise their heads and smile for the camera, 

I've also been contemplating the condition of the pasture. It stinks. Multiple years of drought have taken their toll.

The good thing is that some of the cholla cactus have dried up and gone dormant. 

I take that back. This is not a good thing. This is an excellent thing. 

One swift kick can uproot a dormant cholla, rendering it obsolete, never to regenerate 

and suck what little water there is out of the ground, say nothing of attaching itself to the velvety noses of my herd.

So I've been multi-tasking during my extra hour of daylight each day this week, spending time with Lucy and the boys 

while kicking down every dormant cholla I walk past. The soil conditions are such that if my toe meets the sweet spot, 

the cholla flies up out of the ground. I learned early on that sneakers are not the best choice of footwear for this endeavor, 

since dormant cholla may have an occasional sole-penetrating needle. Nonetheless, I've not been deterred.

Kicking the crap out of a cholla cactus is one of life's greatest pleasures. 

Most of you will have to take my word on that, but trust me. It's like popping bubble wrap, only better. 

Having Hank accompany me while I pursue this new hobby makes it all the better.

Hank: This is not the behavior of a normal person.

Me: I'm well aware of that, but it is only with your best interests in mind

that I am out here in the first place...

...because while I'm spending time with you and kicking down cactus and taking pictures for the blog,
I am also on the lookout for locoweed. Is this or isn't it? Time will tell.

Hank's life is good again

After six long weeks of confinement due to this year's prolific crop of locoweed, I was able to turn the boys back out into the pasture yesterday.



They're all greatly relieved to have their freedom back, particularly Hank. Me, not so much. If I want to see them, I have to go looking, as they only come back to the barn when they're thirsty.

A small price to pay in exchange for a happy horse.

FAQ Friday, episode 3

Welcome to the third episode of FAQ Friday, where I'll answer the questions you've posed this week and try to convince some of you that I haven't lost my mind and that giving chickens pedicures is a perfectly normal thing to do.

The week started with what I thought to be a sane and sensible way to identify my chickens.

From kkk:
Q. Have you considered colored leg bands like they use on wild birds for identification? The nail polish is cute but the leg bands would last longer!
A. I did consider the leg bands, but they came in packs of 25 and I didn't want to get 22 more chickens. The nail polish is wearing surprisingly well after six days, though the girls do have appointments for a touch-up on Sunday.

From June:
Q. I have to believe you did this just for blogging purposes?
A. No, I would have painted their nails even if I didn't have a blog (whether I would have taken pictures of their colorful toes remains to be seen). It's great to be able to tell them apart! I've learned that Peach is the most independent, Clara loves tortillas, and Lorena's hobby is rock-climbing.

From A New England Life, gtyyup, and Oregontribal1:
Q. Is life becoming a little too mundane on the ranch?
Q. Maybe you've been on the ranch a lil' too long?
Q. You might need to take breather from all the "farm life" and go to town and have a pedicure yourself? Just talk to someone without so many whiskers, feathers, or hooves maybe?
A. I can't imagine what makes you think I need to get a life. (I love it when my blogging friends tease me and I can throw it right back at them, and everyone knows we're just kidding here, right?)

From C in WI:
Q. What kind of equipment/lenses do you use most of the time?
A. Almost all the photos you've seen on this blog since July 2008 were taken with a Nikon D80 and the lens it came with - a Nikkor 18-135mm zoom. For indoor and other low-light conditions, I use a Nikkor 35mm 1.8 lens.

From Penni:
Q. Did the upside down tomato planter make tomatoes – were you satisfied with it? I want tomatoes, but the baddogs do not (apparently). So, I was contemplating the "above their heads approach."
A. I did get tomatoes from my upside-down planter...teeeny, tiny tomatoes. Granted, I started out with a cherry tomato plant, but the tomatoes ended up being the size of peas. I'm not sure if that was a function of the planter or my water.

From Tina and Morning Bray Farm:
Q. When will we get the many faces of Alan version?
A. I sense a theme coming on. Smooch and George have had their turns - it's only fair to work on down the line. Look for Alan's soon.

From Pat in East TN:
Q. I can't believe the problems with your locoweed, and being as I don't remember it being mentioned much before, what caused it to suddenly take over the 7MSN?
A. All the snow and rain I whined about from December through March brought out the locoweed, as well as every other weed, wildflower, and plant that was dormant during our many dry years. Bubba, the herbicide guy, was here yesterday, spraying the pastures to get rid of the crazy stuff. When it falls over and dies and the surrounding grass grows a few inches, I'll be able to let the boys back into the pasture - I'm thinking that should be around the beginning of July.

I'll leave you with this parting shot that didn't find its way into any other post this week. Have a great weekend, everybody.

FAQ Friday, episode 2

Welcome to the second episode of FAQ Friday, where I'll answer the questions you've posed this week and tie up a few loose ends.

Early in the week, I was fretting about whether all the new plants sprouting across the ranch might be locoweed. Erring on the side of caution, I elected to build a new fence to isolate the boys from the prodigious patches of possible poison in the pasture. A few of you picked up on my fractured Scarlett O'Hara quote and guessed correctly that I was listening to "Gone With the Wind" while I was fencing.


Oh fiddle dee dee, indeed, because my worst fears have been confirmed. I'll spare you all the sordid details of my angst, but here is quick summary of the current situation:
1. All the questionable sprouts are locoweed.
2. Sprouts I hadn't questioned are poisonous as well. Nothing is ever as bad as it seems...sometimes it's worse.
3. The heretofore unquestioned sprouts were growing in the boys' newly fenced pasture. Meet our latest enemy:

Appropriate name, don't you think? This stuff is known to cause cyanide poisoning in cattle and sheep. Absent definitive information about its effect on horses and burros, I pulled every stinkin' sprout from the five acres where the boys are temporarily living.
4. My new best friend is a PhD and rangeland weed specialist in Artesia, New Mexico (I call him Dr. Weed).
5. My other new best friend is licensed to apply the controlled substance which will eradicate all this lovely greenery from the 7MSN (I call him Bubba).
6. Said spraying will commence as soon as the multi-gallons of herbicide are FedExed to Bubba.
7. Hank, George and Alan will have to get used to their temporary mini-pasture - it may be July before I am able to turn them out again.

So...
From C in Wi:
Q. Would Roundup kill the devil plants, or are there just too many of them?
A. No. Yes.

On to happier topics. So how about those chickens?

From Lynette:
Q. As soon as I saw "girls" in the title, I said YAY - the chickens! Happy foraging to them. You can tell them apart?
A. No.


Clara, Lorena and Peach look eggsactly alike. I'm determined to devise a method to identify them until such time that I can pick them out in a crowd by their personalities – perhaps differently colored nail polish, perhaps ID badges hung around their necks. Time will tell.

From Morning Bray Farm:
Q. Looks like the three of them tended to stick together. Did they?
A. You know how Fergus and Nigel or George and Alan or Bernard and Ellsworth are never more than an inch apart? It's like that.

From Sandra and Fantastyk Voyager and This DVM's Wife's Life:
Q. What about Deets and snakes and birds?
Q. How does Deets like them?
Q. But what about Deets? What will he think of them?
A. For now, Deets has absolutely no interest in the chickens, which baffles me. He doesn't step paw into the chicken yard. Experienced chicken-raisers have led me to believe that full-grown chickens and barn cats can peacefully co-exist. Until then, close supervision is our mantra. The chicken yard (formerly known as my garden) is adjacent to the house, so I'm hopeful that predatory birds and other varmints won't want to get too close to civilization and my girls.

Regarding the Prank in the Pasture...

From JaneK:
Q. Were you just completely cracking up as this whole thing unfolded....or were you a little nervous hoping that it didn't end with needing a call to the vet?
A. I could barely take those pictures because I was laughing so hard and smiling so big. As rambunctious as George and Alan can get, I never worry about them hurting each other. That's just not something they do. Amen.

And a final question to close out the week...

From Gazelle:
Q. Just wondering was there a post I missed that explained how the 7MSN was named ? I'm sure there's a story behind that name too.
A. Wayyyy back in the olden days of this blog, I wrote about the fairy tale that is my life. The answer to your question is at the end of Part 4.

That was fun. Thanks for your questions and all your comments this week. We'll be back next Friday with more answers, more explanations, and continuing updates to the locoweed saga. But I can't think about that right now. I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow.

Hell's a-poppin'

I knew that all the snow and rain that blessed this desert land over the winter could make for a hellish spring.

I hate it when I'm right.

Hank and I spotted the first flowering locoweed 15 days ago, just outside our fenceline. Since then, I've combed the pasture fully expecting to find lots more, but I've pulled just a handful of the pretty purple, highly toxic variety. It's the too-many-acres-to-pull, yet-to-flower, similar-looking sprouts that I'm worried about now. Are they among the harmful species of locoweed?



I took some samples to the local soil and water conservation office on Monday. I heard a lot of "hmmm..." and "interesting!" but nothing definitive. Then I e-mailed pictures to the county extension agent and, so far, have heard alot of nothing.

So what's a paranoid rancher-woman concerned for the life of her equines to do while she waits to find out what evil lurks in her pasture? Why, build a fence to separate them from the suspicious sprouts, of course. Starting at 6 a.m. Without the benefit of coffee. After a sleepless night spent trying to devise a workable plan. That she could accomplish by herself.

"I'll just dismantle the round pen, use the 17 panels to build a 200-foot fence between here and there, and pound in a bunch of t-posts to support it. Piece of cake!"

George and Alan were of tremendous help, stirring up the dust...

...and playing ring around the corral panel.

Not one to be left out, Hank had to show he could be an ass as well and stand in the way of progress.

Deets got in on the act and tested the panels to make sure they were balanced properly on the back of the Ranger.


Overall, the temporary fence project was going quite well until I forgot I was moving a 12' wide load through a 10' opening.

Ooops. Sometimes I needs supervision.

But the fence is now up. Much to the boys' dismay, they have a mere 5 acres to graze, but it's better than nothing. I hope to have a definitive answer on whether the devil is dancing in the pasture sometime this week. If he is, I'm not sure what in the hell I'm going to do. But I'm not going to worry about that today. I'll worry about that tomorrow. Guess which audiobook I listened to while building the fence.

Doin' the loco-motion

It's about to get crazy around here.

The last time we had a wet winter, the locoweed popped up in the pasture that spring and I went nuts trying to pull it all out so the horses wouldn't eat it. (You can read about it here.)

With all the rain and snow we've had this winter, it's inevitable that the locoweed will be sprouting soon, if it hasn't already.


Every green weed is a suspect at this point, and I'm getting lots of exercise bending over to inspect them. Once I have proof that there's a crop of craziness in bloom, Hank and George and Alan will be confined to the corral and the locoweed-pulling will commence.

Last time, it took me the better part of a week to comb every square inch of the ranch. I pulled it before it went to seed, so I've got to think there won't be as much this time.

I'm prepared for the mind-bending madness this year - how bad can pulling weeds be when I can listen to an audiobook on my ipod while I work? If I get through all 50 hours of "Gone With the Wind," pretty bad.

Looking down ...aka la vida loco

I’ve been looking in all directions lately, and now my focus is downward,
at the ground, lookin’ for locoweed. How crazy is that?



Ever since I moved to the 7MSN, I’d been on the lookout for this plant – it can literally make a horse ... and his owner... go crazy.

Here is what the booklet “New Mexico Range Plants” has to say about it: Some locos are highly poisonous and small amounts will kill an animal in a short time. Others can be consumed in fairly large amounts over a long period before ill effects are noticeable. Most loco poisoning occurs in early spring as these plants become green before forage plants. Locos are generally not very palatable, but animals, especially horses, appear to develop a taste for them.”

Here are some symptoms of locoweed poisoning in horses: ...altered gaits, aimless wanderings, sometimes in circles, impaired vision (to the extent they bump into things or fall into arroyos or other depressions) and erratic behavioral changes. They may appear listless or complacent, then wildly overreact to some unexpected event. “Locoed” horses are unsafe to ride or be around, and there is no antidote for the toxin.

Though it’s a perennial, locoweed does not sprout every year; it’s appearance in spring usually follows a very wet fall/winter. Last April, I was out in the pasture and spotted something purple...how pretty! Then I recognized it was locoweed. I pulled it out, confined the horses to the corral, and ran inside to call the vet. He suggested I take a sample to a plant nursery to confirm my suspicions before I jumped to any conclusions. If my pretty purple plant proved to be locoweed, then I could panic. He also said there wasn’t any good data on how much or how little a horse would have to eat before becoming poisoned. His advice was to get rid of all of it if it proved to be locoweed.

Sure enough, my worst fear was confirmed at the nursery, and within a few days of finding the first specimen on my ranch, I heard two firsthand horror stories from people in the county who had to put their horses down - in one case, a rancher ended up losing his entire team of draft horses.

Over the next week, with the horses still confined to their corral, I set out to find the best way to eradicate locoweed from my ranch. And after hours of googling and talking to the county extension agent and researchers at the state university, my only option became painfully clear - I would have to pull it out by the roots, plant by stinkin’ plant, before the seed pods developed and would make the problem that much worse the next time it sprouted.

“Hello, boss? I won’t be at my desk for the next week or so...there are these weeds in my pasture that I have to pull before my horses eat them and die.” She had heard some outrageous excuses before, but this was a doozy.

But what choice did I have? Gamble that my horses wouldn’t eat it? I don’t think so.

So I started to comb the pasture...all 80 acres. I walked in three-foot swaths, looking left, looking right, so as not to miss one single deadly locoweed. Where there was one plant, there were many. I’d bend over, pull it out, toss it into a plastic grocery bag, and stay bent over until I was sure I pulled the whole patch. And then I’d walk on. Some areas of the ranch were locoweed-free; others were covered with it. Locoweed has a peculiar odor – at one point, I think the fumes got to me. I convinced myself I could sell everything I picked on ebay, become a millionaire, and hire somebody to pull the stuff next time it sprouted. Then I convinced myself I would probably end up in jail for selling hallucinogens.

Seven days and 50-some Walmart bags later, I had walked/bent/pulled/tossed/stood over the whole ranch. I was sunburned, windburned, and dehydrated, but by god, if my horses were going to die from locoweed poisoning it wasn’t because I didn’t give it my best shot.

And here we are, one year later. The fall and winter were bone-dry in comparison to the perfect-storm conditions that caused last spring’s locoweed. I’m hopeful that I won’t find a single poisonous purple plant in the pasture. But that doesn’t mean I’ll stop looking down.

The things we won’t do for our horses...