Almost as Good as New

It has been a little over a month since I was mugged by those mares in the pasture at the ranch and suffered a bad concussion. I am almost recovered and as good as new!  This past week I have started feeling like myself again but still have to be careful about avoiding another severe blow to my head. Last Wednesday was my first day without the daily "brain cramp" headache that I have gotten every day since the concussion. As my doctor said I was very fortunate to not have any bleed and only time will work out all of the "disconnections" of neurons that have been causing my problems.

The balance problems, recall problems, speech problems and fatigue are pretty well resolved. Gosh darn it the Old Me is back!

We still don't have warm enough weather to do much about planting anything in the foundation flowerbeds around the house or to do any work on the deck in the back. The front porch was enlarged but weather has not been dry or warm enough to stain it. The lows are still below freezing every night and last week the highs were in the 40's. Next week highs are to be in the 50's and that is progress. We keep saying we came back from Arizona too soon this year and need to stay until May next year..... We will see.

Since I am not going to do any more "hard" riding and competition on horses, I have started doing more ground work with the one and two year colts at the ranch. ( In the west on a ranch all immature horses of young age are called colts whether they are girls or boys.) here are two one year olds that I will be starting with and Nelson (names for Willie Nelson) is the two year old that I started working with last year and will continue with this season. I have always enjoyed starting colts in their ground training and am glad that I will have more time for it now. Ground training is the basis for all they will learn and gives them an obedient confident and trusting attitude toward humans. You can make or break a good horse by how it is handled at this stage, so I am honored that Fran trusts me with her babies. I am hoping to get some pictures and describe their progress.

News Flash...I got a set of golf clubs last week and am taking up the game again.  I played with a women's group the first two years that we lived over here in Bend, Oregon. So, those of you that we see in Arizona, lets go hit some balls.