No Pictures

No new visitors nor any exciting new vista's in our recent past so this is just a short catch up with what is happening in my life.

Like a lot of my blogging friends I am finding that the dearth of new adventures can put a definite slow down on my creative juices when it come to the blog. Back when I first began this journey we were traveling a lot more and seeing new things and meeting new folks on an almost daily basis so it was easy to sit down and write a few paragraphs each day and slip in a few timely photographs to break up the text.

And then once we settled into our winter home here at Dogpound South I had to cut back on the daily photos of our environs. I mean how many different shots can I find of 3.3 acres of dirt. But we still managed to find some new country on our almost weekly trailriding trips so things were still pretty interesting, at least to me.

What with Brenda's not so successful knee replacement last spring our trail riding has slowed down considerably and that source of new stories has taken a hit, although we are hopeful that we will be back on the trails in the future, so things might get a little busier here then. Till then I am sure you don't want to hear about the almost a 1000 lengths I swim each week in the great new facility the town of Maricopa built just down the road from Dogpound South or the endless beautiful days I spend enjoying the weather here.

The one bright spot on the blogging horizon was precipitated by a reportable disease that has affected Arizona livestock. Vesicular Stomatitis (VS) is a disease that affects horses and to a lesser extent cattle and other ruminants and at the moment Arizona has a couple of cases of this disease lurking around their southern borders. What that means to us is that after 60 days in Arizona our horses are deemed Arizona residents and the Canadian government restricts the movement of Arizona horses into the country. No doubt a good idea as though this disease is not usually fatal it can be expensive to treat and we sure don't want to drag it back into Canada to affect our VS free status there. The last reported case of VS in Canada was in 1949.

So that brings us back to the bright spot. To enable us to take our loyal mounts back to their Canadian home so they don't have to spend the summer in the heat of Arizona we need to move them to another state and get them resident status there. It takes 21 days to acquire that status so we and a bunch of our Canadian/Arizona winter horse folks are planning a slow migration north this spring. Long time readers will remember that usually we load up and head north in a hurry making the trip from Dogpound South to Dogpound North in just 3 days and 2 nights. This year the plan is for a more relaxed journey, once we cross the Arizona/Utah line we plan to slow our journey (Utah being a VS free state). Don't worry Utah we'll have things checked out and brand new Health Certificates in hand so that we don't bring any unwelcome visitors to your state either.  Lucky for us Utah has some beautiful riding spots amongst their red rock canyons and the temps in early April should be perfect. Like all plans in our world these are written in jello so things might change but till the next installment this is what the future looks like.

Till then I will be lurking on the sidelines of blogland, but never fear always watchful, and interested, in what those of you that are still writing are sharing.