It took us 45 minutes to get into the park because the traffic was so bad. We stopped at the paint pots and hiked the 1/3 mile to the view point. A lovely day for a hike and the girl's loved the bubbly mud - Madison thought it looked like eyeballs when it popped into the air. We got to see a bear just a little ways off the roads, lots of buffalo with brand new babies, elk and some sheep that looked pretty sad with their raggedy hair since they had started shedding.
We stopped at the God Bless America travel bug cache and left off the travel bug. It's still sitting there so if it's still there in 3 weeks, guess i'll pick it up and take it through Idaho and over to the original cache near Alexshuman. Picked up these little croc travel bugs - the pink one is named Madison so going to take them to CO with me tomorrow and place them in a cache there. (if I can find it, my gps cost a fortune and I'm not too happy with it so thinking it is going to be sent in for repairs - does everyone else's gps flake out and tell you to go one way 28 feet and when you start heading that way, it tells you to go a different direction 95 feet - oh well, I digress)
We got home about 6:30, ate sandwiches for dinner and sat on the deck for a while. Then, I told Jules - "We need to take some carrots out and say goodbye to Dudley. Tata is taking him to a new home tomorrow. His feet are hurting so badly that he can't stay here any longer."
I cut up some carrots and took the girls out to feed them to the horses. Then Jules went and sat on the big rock in the front yard, hanging tightly onto her stuffed Dudley, staring at the mountain and crying her poor little heart out. "I don't want Dudley to leave, I want him to stay here".
Last summer Dudley would limp for a few days and then seem to heal up. This summer, he was limping and at first, we thought it was because he hadn't had new shoes in 8 weeks (need to change them out every 6.) Unfortunately new shoes didn't help and when JW took Dudley to the vet a couple of weeks ago, she told him that he had degenerative hoof disease and there was nothing she could do for him. He would just continue to get worse and worse. The only thing we could do for him is to give him this stuff called butte which is a pain reliever. Dudley has never liked medication of any kind, we were not even able to spray him with fly spray as he would just go crazy. To give him butte, John would have to hobble his front legs, then tie one of his rear legs up. It would take both of us to hold his head still long enough to squeeze a couple tablespoons of this paste stuff into his mouth. We decided the best thing to do would be to take him to the open sale auction and sell him - we're not exactly sure what would happen to him but it was the best thing for him.
Tata went out to talk to Jules and then she asked if she could go see Dudley again. So I took along the camera to snap a few pictures.
JW was Dudley's best friend - it was so hard for him but early Sunday morning, he got up and headed into the auction. 5 hours later he came home with an empty trailer. The girls and I had gone out to spend some time with Badger because he was really missing his partner. They hadn't been able to spend much time with Badger because Dudley was always pushing him away so it was fun for them to be able to go out into the pasture and pull Dandy's (dandelions) for Badger - "who is going to feed him when we go home?"
I told Jules that we were going to dig up an old bush and plant a new bush that we would call the Dudley bush. On Thursday, we went to the Rocky Mountain Flower Farm in Red Lodge and when I told one of the lady's who work there what we were looking for, she took us over to the bushes the deer wouldn't eat. She showed us several including a spirea named Little Princess. Of course, Jules wanted that kind so the lady showed her the 20 or so bushes she had and let Jules pick out the exact one she wanted.
We worked and worked Thursday night to get out the old cedar bush but just couldn't get it done. Tata and Jules finished digging that out on Friday morning and when I took my lunch break, we got the Dudley bush planted. Can't wait until the pink flowers start blooming.
John is going to go check out a mule and a horse tomorrow - this time we are getting something that me and the girls can ride. The girls will be back over this way in a couple of weeks so hopefully we'll have a new horse that they can enjoy.
Jules sent me this story a few weeks ago (her Dudley is a large stuffed horse that I bought for her when she was here exactly 2 years ago so 2007 not 2006 - typed exactly as she wrote it)
Dudlyl and I mett in 2006. So I bought Dudlyl. My Nana said. "Ther's go home. When we got home I showed Dudlyl Nana's Dudlyl. Nana said "They almost look the same. But yours has a dot on its fourhed. Then the wind blew Nana's Dudly's hair bles. I said "Hey they look the same. See? Yes I do. I rode on my Dudlyl.
We'll miss you Dudley but it was great that we could have you in our lives for 5 years.
