A Birthday and A Gotcha Day!!!

Not only is it St. Patrick's Day it's also Cowboy's birthday and Catnip's gotcha day!!! This definitely is cause for celebration. The corned beef is in the crockpot...simmering in beer and spices...it's already smelling really good!!

So, my Cowboy is 10 years old today!! How can the years go by so fast...he was a pup not long ago in my mind...and a cutie he was too!

Day one at home.
He only puked once on the 2 hour ride home!

Cowboy on his first horse camping trip...
we did provide a bed for him, but
he seemed to prefer grain tubs!

How could anyone have resisted those
cute lil' white eyelashes and the white tipped ears?!?

On our wedding day, he got into some spilled wine...
he was passed out on the garage floor during
the whole reception!
I think he looks pretty good with pink flowers...don't you?

He prefers cow manure of course!

Cowboy was a very good friend for this calf named Angelo.
Angelo was paraplegic and I was trying to rehab him.
Cowboy loved to keep him company.

Cowboy is showing signs of hip dysplasia...we bought him
a new therapeutic bed and he loves it!

Thank you for a wonderful 10 years Cowboy.
Happy Birthday my lil' buckaroo!!!

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And of course we can't forget Catnip!! We adopted her from the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge in 2006; three years ago today. The wild horses and burros on the Refuge are not protected like the BLM land horses and burros. There have been some pretty bad stories about round ups gone very bad with lots of causalities.

My Man and I decided that we'd like to have a baby around, but I'm not really into mares, so we decided a burro jenny would be fun. We'd never had a burro before. So, we contacted the Refuge and they were in the process of bait trapping burros and not long after, 2 jenny's and their yearlings were caught.

Caught in the trap on the Refuge.
Catnip is the largest brown burro.
The gray jenny was adopted by my friend in Vale Oregon,
and her name is Zelda.
The yearlings also found homes.

Where did the name Catnip come from? I tend to name my wild ones with something that came from the area. On the Refuge there is a Catnip Mountain and a Catnip Canyon Creek. So, there you have it...not very exciting huh?!? But, she seems to fit her name.

Getting to know Catnip.
Food is a good motivator for burros.

We didn't know for sure if she was in foal when we got her, but there was a very good chance she was, and sure enough...she kept getting bigger and bigger...

"What are you lookin' at?"
"Haven't ya ever seen a pregnant burro before? Geesh!!!"

We waited and waited...my friend's burro, Zelda, had her lil' burro baby in June...so we figured it shouldn't be long now...we waited, and waited...and waited some more...

Then finally on the morning of August 23, 2006,
Catnip presented us with Silverbelly Stetson.
Baby burros are the cutest things God ever made!!!

Catnip is still a lil' standoffish, but that's because I don't work with her near enough. But we can trim her hooves and get her wormed and vaccinated. We love to hear the two of them sounding off...always for food!!

Glad you're here Catnip...you are a
special part of our family.
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