At last I made time to get out on a bike ride.  I think it's been two weeks since I've ridden but it seems far longer. 

My former employer, and now one of my dearest friends, fell ill with what she thought was the flu.  She went to bed on Monday night and by the time I found her on Wednesday afternoon, she was so dehydrated that she couldn't get out of bed.  I summoned an ambulance to take her to the hospital and after about seven hours in the ER they admitted her to ICU.  Having had previous experience with the hospital when my Uncle Ted was there, I knew I needed to stay with her to make sure they didn't neglect her.

I expected she would make a rapid recovery once they were able to get some fluids into her but it didn't happen.  Her nausea and diarrhea continued and her condition continued to deteriorate every day.  Her daughter flew in from Oregon on Friday and I was relieved to have her help at the hospital.  Saturday morning, I felt unwell, no appetite, nausea, and diarrhea.  By mid day I was in bed.  But by Sunday morning the fever had subsided and I was back on my feet.  I called the daughter to let her know that I thought I would be able to cover a shift at the hospital that afternoon, only to learn that she too was sick. 

By Sunday afternoon, I decided that she needed to go to the ER, so I loaded her into the car with a plastic waste basket in her lap for emergency use.  Thankfully, she responded to the IV fluids and anti nausea meds and was able to go back home to recover.  We now realized how contagious this was and called the housekeeper, who had come on Friday to clean, only to learn that she was already sick too.  The daughter was back on her feet by Tuesday and relieved me of my hospital vigil. 

My poor horses have been so neglected!  Each of them has had only one day of exercise a week for nearly ten weeks and they are quite a handful when I take them out.  I turn them out in the arena while I clean their stalls and they frisk around like colts, running and bucking, rolling in the freshly turned soil, turning their white coats pink with the red clay dirt.  Flo, the gelding, is especially expressive.  When I wave my hands and tell him to go play, he rears up with perfect balance, then gallops away with his long, silver mane and tail flowing behind him. 

Sally and I rode up Escalator and down the motor cycle trails today.  Following yesterday's rain, the trails were in perfect condition for high speed cornering.  It was getting towards sunset but we reckoned we had enough time to ride down one of the new conservancy trails and back up and over the ridge before dark.  By the time we reached the College, we decided there wasn't time to ride Joint Point and just headed down the road to the maintenance yard.  From there we made our way through the groves back to Opal Ave.  It was pretty cold and nearly dark by the time we rolled in, but totally worth the discomfort.  I found three or four ticks on me when I got home.

After eight weeks of temp work, I'm free again.  I had forgotten how much fun temp work is.  The beauty of being a temp is that everybody is nice to you; they don't have high expectations, so it's easy to exceed them; and the work is new and interesting. 

This job was especially nice because office administration in a church office means you are surrounded by volunteers who are there because they want to be there.  Everyone works together cheerfully, with a common purpose.  I made some nice friends on the job so I expect I'll be doing some volunteer work there myself in the future.  They don't seem to mind that I don't share their faith.

In addition to my working two jobs, Mike started a major remodel project on the house.  In preparation for renovating the kitchen, he tore the roof off the family room and is in the process of installing a new one with a steeper pitch.  We hired a young man that I met at the church to help with the demolition but Mike likes to work alone when it comes to the rebuilding.  I find all the decisions involved in remodeling to be daunting, but thankfully Mike is accustomed to it.  He does all the research on materials and just consults me on things like placement of skylights, color choices, etc.  A friend gave us the second hand plywood (in case you're wondering about the graphics).  It's of exceptionally good quality.

I just have to share a picture of the produce I harvested from the garden today.  Yes, I'm cultivating climate envy here.

Get a load of that tomato!  I calculated that I have about eight pounds of tomatoes of viable size on my two remaining plants. 

I've started working the horses more often again.  They grew noticeably more rambunctious over the last eight weeks of light exercise, or perhaps their increased energy is due to the cooler weather.  Either way, there have been some interesting antics on my last couple of rides.

I'll sign off with a quote I read recently:  "No one really listens to anyone else, and if you try it for a while you'll see why."  (Journalist Mignon McLaughlin)  ~Well, it tickled my funny bone.~

  I took Gemela out Saturday, and since I'm only able to ride each horse once a week now, I thought I'd take her on a nice long ride.  At the outset she was her normal exuberant self, but after about two miles, she suddenly stopped and refused to go further.  Thinking she was just missing her brother, who had accompanied us on the last ride, I urged her on.  She went on reluctantly but soon balked again.  It was a little warm so I made her go on a short distance before turning back towards home.  Even headed for home, she walked slowly and frequently stopped entirely.  By this time I was pretty certain there was something wrong. 

Back at the barn, she balked at going into the wash rack.  I insisted and she eventually complied but she didn't express her usual pleasure during the bath.  When presented with her Senior Mix lunch, she looked at it listlessly and turned away.  Now I knew there was something seriously wrong.

Soon she was lying down, groaning in discomfort.  I knew that my regular vet was on vacation but colic is a life threatening condition so I wasted no time in calling his on-call replacement.  She was on a call about thirty miles away but said she could be at our place in an hour and a half.  So, I paced, suffering along with my equine friend. 

After what seemed an eternity, she arrived, a fresh-faced youngster, driving a magnificent diesel pickup truck.  Prior to her arrival, I had been teasing Steve about the possibility that she might be single and interested in dating him.  Now I wondered if perhaps her mother was single.

Her examination revealed nothing obviously wrong, except for Gemela's obvious discomfort, good bowel sounds, only a slightly elevated heart rate (which could have been caused by white coat syndrome), and no elevated temperature.  To be safe, she concluded, we should probably pump some mineral oil into her stomach.  Gemela didn't think that was such a good idea.

The minute Gemela saw the needle for the sedative, her eyes lost their glassy, disinterested look.  With head up and nostrils flared, she tensed her neck muscles making it nearly impossible for this recent graduate to insert the needle into a vein.  But, after a couple of attempts, blood flowed back into the needle, indicating she had found the vein.  How she managed is beyond me since, unlike with a human, there is no outward sign of where to poke through the hair.  The young doctor proceeded to attach one vial after another to the needle that dangled from Gemela's neck, and plunged their contents into her.  Within minutes Gemela relaxed.  The injection was a cocktail designed to calm her and relieve the pain in her gut.

I thought Gemela might take a nap until she realized that the six foot hose the good doctor had looped over her arm was going to be shoved up her nose.  Again the head went up and the lights came back on.  Time for the twitch. 

For the education of you non horse folks, a twitch is a loop of rope or chain that's attached to the end of a wooden ax handle.  The rope (or chain) is placed over the horse's upper lip and twisted until it's so tight that it won't slip off.  It sounds barbaric but it seldom does any injury and most horses will stand quietly when held by it. 

So, I held the twitch while Doc shoved the tube down her nostril.  Glug, glug, glug.  Once the end of the tube was in the stomach, she sucked out some fluid to make sure the stomach wasn't over filled already, before pumping in the mineral oil.  There's always a danger of putting it down the trachea instead of the esophagus so this probably acts as insurance against drowning the horse too, though an experienced vet can tell one from the other by how easily (or not) the tube slides down.

Pulling the tube out is as unsettling to the horse as shoving it in but Gemela showed great courage, and respect for the twitch, and stood quietly throughout the procedure.  Historically, she has been a difficult horse to treat and I like to think that the trust I've built up over the last six months had something to do with this success.

Within a few minutes Gemela was looking for something to eat so it was obvious that the pain was gone.  She spent a comfortable night so the next morning, I gave her a handful of hay.  She ate it with gusto.  A couple of hours later I gave her another very small portion of hay and she walked away and laid down in her shavings again.  Dang it!

By now, Dr. Ott, Steve's regular vet was available and he agreed to come out and examine her.  Again, all the vital signs were within normal parameters.  He deftly slipped a needle into her neck and administered another pain killing cocktail.  He said that if she wasn't improved by the next day he would come back and do a rectal exam to look for tumors that might be partially blocking her back door.

So far so good.  She has eaten six very tiny meals today.  I can only hope that tomorrow brings more improvement.  Surgery on a horse is a very dangerous thing but surgery on a twenty-year-old horse is probably out of the question. 

I took on the responsibility of these mature horses knowing full well that I would grow fond of them and knowing too, that managing health care in the senior years can be difficult.  I thought I could remain phlegmatic about their inevitable and possibly imminent death.  Now I'm not so sure.  Great pleasure comes at a cost.

After what seems like weeks of energy sapping, hot weather, this morning I awoke to a quiet world, blanketed by a gray marine layer.  Clear Sunday mornings are alive with the sound of small planes (I live within a mile of a popular small airport), lawn mowers, dogs barking, and families splashing in pools.  But foggy mornings are pure heaven.  Sensible pilots stay on the ground, folks and their dogs sleep in, and pools lay still and silent.

We "mature" people awake at more or less the same time, regardless of  the day of the week.  For me, that's at dawn, the most tranquil time of the day.  I like to putter about in the yard in my jammies, watering, weeding, harvesting the colorful bell peppers that have FINALLY ripened. 

And with my entourage of cats, I collect up last night's dinner dishes and begin the process of feeding nine cats all over again. 

Yes, I admit to feeding nine cats.  All but one of them moved in uninvited, and paid the ultimate price to stay.   They paid with their ability to reproduce.  One remains intact because he is wily enough to remain at arms length.  Were he a she, I wouldn't be as lenient.

After doing my chores, I put on my cycling gear and jumped on the Intense.  It was misting heavily so I decided to ride up to clean corrals and wait for it to clear up a bit.  Merilee, a boarder, was there and had put her horses in the arena while she worked on setting some new fence posts in her paddock.  She has two young horses, five and seven, which are very sweet and gentle though not trained for riding.  

By the time I had the stalls and corrals cleaned, the drizzle had stopped; so I headed for the Crafton Hills.  The Crafton Hills Open Space Conservancy http://craftonconservancy.homestead.com/  has built some new trails that I wanted to explore.  I rode through Marlborough hills along the same route I take the horses and decided that I've been taking it too easy on them.  Except for the sandy canyon bottoms, I was able to ride every hill I ask them to climb, and they have four wheel drive.

The new conservancy trail was surprisingly well compacted and easy to climb. 

Not easy in the level of exertion required, but easy as in "not technical".  At the top of the ridge, I paused to appreciate a pair of hawks circling overhead and then, at a lower elevation, a family of crows gliding silently on the currents.

I dropped down to the old Crafton fire road and turned west, towards home.  The trail we named Joint Point* years ago, looked reasonably clear so I downshifted to granny gear and huffed up to the point.  The descent off this hill is one of those trails that make you feel like a racer girl.  Steep, narrow, twisty, your bike seems to soar as the suspension smoothes out the ruts and rocks.  Sliding into a turn a little too hot, I strayed off the beaten path just enough to give myself a little thrill.  The Intense ploughed through the brush with reckless abandon, found the trail again, and picked up momentum. 

The trail drops down an embankment, crossing a paved access road, before continuing as a two track.  There was a young couple, walking their shepherd at the junction, who might have thought I was a lunatic as I slid to a stop, grinning maniacally.  I popped out my ear buds to chat them up a bit, and to reassure their young dog who was looking at me apprehensively.  For some reason I felt compelled to say something age-appropriate to offset my, thus far, age-inappropriate behavior.  So after admiring their dog, I mentioned that I was listening to Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion. http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/2011/09/24/ I was completely blown away when the young girl said, "On NPR?  I love that show!"  Who would have guessed that anyone under fifty even knew about PHC.

So, once again, I am totally high on mountain biking and naturally, life in general.

BTW if you're into eating, you might enjoy Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  As an organic gardener, I found it inspiring.

*Joint Point got it's name when we encountered a skinny, long-haired kid on a mountain bike, getting mellow and enjoying the sunset.  It was a propitious meeting as he became a good friend and we enjoyed many a wild ride with him.  Sadly, he has given up cycling in favor of parenthood and a career in law enforcement, but Joint Point still conjures up the image of that crazy kid.

Need I say more?

I just love my job.  In fact, it's so much fun that today I thought I'd take you along. 

It was a lovely fall-like day with a coolish breeze and decorative clouds that provided intermittent shade.  Gemela was in a frisky mood.  She had provided some excitement early in the ride, prancing and spinning, pretending to be afraid of nothing.  Passing motorists were patient as they waited to pass us until I could get her off the road.  (Even the narrow back roads through the few remaining orange groves have traffic on them since so many people have nestled their mansions in the groves.) Fortunately, they seemed more amused than irritated at the delay. 

Once we got out into the hills, Gemela asked if we could gallop a bit and of course I said yes.  Andalusians are built for show, not comfort, so her canter is not easy to sit.  She has exaggerated action which looks just beautiful to the casual observer, but even when tightly collected, her rider has to cushion the ride using a lot of upper leg strength.  We took our longest trail, which climbs and descends several ridges, but she never seemed to tire.  Each time we came to a level, open track she politely indicated her willingness to gallop and I couldn't refuse. 

It seems like she's getting in better condition every week and her enthusiasm for the ride increases proportionately.  It's such a joy to ride a horse that enjoys the work.  She has gained so much confidence in me that she no longer balks when I ask her to cross water or step up a curb, unlike our first ride that took an hour to go a quarter of a mile.  Now when she balks it's half hearted and more out of high spirits than true reluctance to comply.

Two of my neighbors have recently acquired young dogs.  Normally, I'm not thrilled when my neighbors adopt dogs because some of them ignore them when they bark and their dogs bark incessantly because they're ignored.  I'm happy that these new dogs are well tended and fun to have as neighbors.

They play happily together through the fence and occasionally Big Bob will even get in on the revelry.  He walks up to the Rottweiler (on the opposite side of the chain link fence) and bats at her nose with his big, gentle paw.  Sometimes it deteriorates into a hissing/barking slug fest and I have to send Bob back to his corner to calm down.  (I have a video that I had planned to post but the Xanga server "is not available")

Have you all seen Michel's blog @fauquet about the "wasteland" near his house?  It's a great blog, especially the picture of him sitting in the weeds with his book, trying to identify them.  It reminded me of the series of prints I have hanging in my hall.  See if you see the resemblance.

I've been seeing all sorts of wildlife on my rides in the hills lately.  I ride in the cool of the morning when lots of critters are out and about.  I've seen a family of what I think may be Golden Eagles.  They're bigger than Red-tailed Hawks and don't have red tails.  I also observed a beautiful Roadrunner who ran away. 

While I was bathing Flo post ride, we were startled to see three coyotes run right up to us, nearly colliding with Flo who was standing in the wash rack.  They were so involved in their own activity that they didn't even notice me at first.  Even after they saw me, they continued their game of chase, romping around the back of the barn and then finally they loped off down the driveway.  I believe two of them were the mangy pups I've been observing all year, thinking they would die of cold during the winter and then of sunburn when spring came.  Evidently, they managed to hold out long enough to overcome the disease because they were sporting short sparse coats and looked almost coyotelike.  I think it's been a good year for the predators because rabbits and squirrels are abundant. 

The flies too, are prolific but the lizard population seems to be rising to the challenge.  A rattlesnake was allegedly spotted in the driveway just below the barn, however, I'm skeptical.  It was reported by a young man who is, by his own admission, scared of snakes and probably doesn't know a gopher snake from a rattlesnake.  It's possible, I suppose, but unlikely.

At first glance one might mistake the pattern of the gopher snake for the rattlesnake but a view of either end clears matters up instantly. 

StephanieWall posted a series of pictures of cats in boxes that were so cute.  I hereby invite my fellow cat lovers to post their own pictures of cats in boxes.  I'm sure Babs will have something to post on this topic.

Bob in the tomato box.  He's not much help in the garden.

Other Gray Kitty oozing out of the strawberry box. 

Sunday, a day of rest, I awoke at dawn, fed the cats and rolled the Intense out of the garage to figure out what ails her.  I'd noticed a dragging brake shoe and an ominous thunking on the last ride so some maintenance was clearly overdue.

I fiddled with the front wheel to make sure it was seated in the drop outs properly and checked the bolts on the rear suspension.  Everything seemed to be in order.  So, I lubricated the chain and called it good. 

Sally showed up around 7 and off we went, me with brake shoe still dragging and handlebars slightly askew.  Oops, missed that in my earlier tender ministrations.  It was already growing warm so I decided that what we needed was a good hard climb.  There's nothing like a steep climb, under a merciless sun, with a dragging brake to build character.

We climbed Upper Workout which is now chest high in mustard weed.  The weeds obscured the path sufficiently that we didn't have to worry about seeing snakes and they clutched at our bikes as we struggled up the hill.  Finally, I stopped and told Sally that I'd had enough of the weeds and I was going to put my leg guards on.  The deer flies saw this as their invitation to breakfast as we were unable to pull the leg guards on and defend ourselves at the same time. 

If this doesn't sound like much fun, let me give you my take on it.  The air was so clear that Saddleback Mountain, some sixty miles away, looked to be within easy riding distance.  The light breeze was so dry that our damp skin was cool to the touch.  There wasn't a sound of civilization to be heard and our legs felt like coiled springs, eager to devour the miles. 

In this picture Sally poses in the bottom of washout created by winter storms.

The trail off Upper Workout, Chapman's Cutoff, was so overgrown that I could only feel my way through the brush in places.  It became pretty interesting where it got steep and rutted but the traction was good.  The biggest danger was of sliding into a hidden snake but our luck held.

The stream crossing at Fish Hatchery Road was deeper than it appeared but we were able to pedal through it without too much trouble.  Sally got wet to her knees but my new camera, nestled in my thigh pocket was high and dry.

We stopped for a snack in the shade of a eucalyptus tree next to the river. 

I wondered aloud about an old pit bull we had encountered here a couple of times, who appeared to be homeless. 

The first time we saw him he looked at us so hopefully that it nearly broke my heart.  Later, we found that some good samaritan had given him a dog igloo and was feeding him.  The next time we met him, he greeted us with that look of faint hope but didn't try to follow us.

So, while we were sitting under the tree, we saw a couple walking down the levy with two dogs.  They were beautiful mixed-breeds with impeccable manners.  When the woman stopped to chat, I asked her if she had seen the old stray lately.  She beamed and turned to her husband who was just coming into my view with a third dog.  It was our old friend.

They explained that the neighborhood had been collectively providing for him for months, but two weeks ago, he had been hit by a car while crossing the highway.  They decided that he needed protection and were now working on incorporating him into their pack. 

It's good to know that even if I can't save them all, with the help of a village, WE can save them all.

I'm getting seriously worried about Big Bad-ass Bob's vainglorious self image.  I fear he may come to harm if I can't disabuse him of the notion that he is invincible. 

This morning, I went out the back door to knock the sand out of my garden clogs and noticed all of the cats were on high alert.  Bob was headed down the driveway as the others planned an escape route.  Rounding the corner of the house I found TWO huge dogs and a little dog, oblivious to their danger, following their noses up the driveway.  Bob was in front of me, between me and the pack, and was already adopting his stiff shouldered, belligerent stance as he sized them up.

I did not want to empower Bob by backing him up but neither did I want to see him eaten alive by the full sized Flandres des Bouvier dogs who were eyeing him with great interest.  I charged down the drive, clogs in hand, shouting like a mad woman, with Bob leading the charge. 

The two large dogs decided they wanted no part of this fight and calmly retreated, but the small, shaggy dog was puzzled as to why his friends were passing up this rare opportunity to have some fun.  He stood his ground until I chucked my shoe at him (nearly hitting Bob instead). 

Once the dogs were off, I went over to Bob and picked him up.  His hair wasn't even standing on end and he didn't hiss at me for picking him up.  With a self satisfied cat grin, he gave me a high five and a head butt.