Take two

So that did not last long. Dad is back in the hospital.

He had a rough night last nite--shortness of breath, and so weak he could not move on his own. He went back to the emergency room at his hospital--about 100 miles away--today. We went to see him there and while he knew he was being admitted, he was not moved to a room until just now. About 7 hours after getting there.

They are testing him to see what his deal is--he is retaining fluid, which might explain the shortness of breath. His blood count is low again, so they are going to give him more blood. They think he is bleeding internally, near the incision site. They think he has a pseudo-aneurism, what ever that is. Whether he has had another heart attack has not been ruled out, but I am the only one who has actually asked that question, as far as I can tell. I guess it is not the top of the list of concerns.

The grossest part is his swelled up nut. Apparently, one of them is the size of a small watermelon. I am taking his word for it, I don't want anything to do with that, thank you very much. He is cracking jokes about it though. Evidently, even the doc was shocked, although it is not uncommon, I guess. I told him he needs a basket to carry it around with him, which led to more disgusting conversation. I will spare you those details.

Since we were in St Louis, we looked at apartments for Barry in Soulard, and looked for trucks. Long long day.

Project Rebound--Foxy and Dad

This morning, Foxy told me that under no circumstances would she be taking off this blanket to have her Thursday Rebound pictures. Check out the look on her face. She was not kidding. I wonder how she will feel about the big snow storm coming in tonight? I am probably going to leave her out there since there is a huge shelter in that pen--not that I have seen her in it yet, but surely at some point she will go in it.


I hoped it would warm up to take her pics, but it did not. So by 5 pm, I told her to suck it up, she was getting stripped. That explains why the pics suck so bad---either the flash caused glare like in this one, or the shot is really dull, which obscures details. But whatcha gonna do--I think they show the big picture here.



This shows that her hips are still light and that her butt is not back, but it has come a long way from when her tailbone was sticking up two weeks ago.
Yeah this one is not even in focus. But where are her ribs? HIDING! And since she has been blanketed, her hair is laying flat. This is not an illusion. Her ribs do not show. There are still some top line issues, but she is filling in for sure. That and her rear end will be the last to completely fill out, but I am so excited by the progress made over the last few weeks.
She is standing really weird here, so her underline looks stupid--ignore that. This pic most prominently shows her spine just in front of her pelvis.
Now that the ground is frozen, she can spend some more time outside. I did not want her burning calories fighting the mud and much, so she has been stalled until yesterday when it froze again. Now she can have at this alfalfa full time. Why so much of it is completely outside of the pen, I have no idea. I had to stand in the hay pile to take some of the pics tonight, and it is clear she is using it as much as a bed as anything. Oh well. She has cut her senior feed intake in half. She tends to do that when her water source is not as plentiful as she would like it. She has a 100 gallon trough but it frosts over. She can and does break it, and I break it several times a day. We can only run so many tank heaters on our electrical system, so she gets the short end of the stick on that deal. She has finished her antibiotics, but is still taking her ulcer meds, her Visorbin and occasionally the Probios biscuits that just really piss her off. If I do not hide them, she will not eat them and she is learning to hunt for them or just not eat if she thinks they are in there.

In other news, my dad got out of the hospital today. He was supposed to come home yesterday but was not well enough. He has some unpleasant side effects from these surgeries and is pretty beat up. He goes back to the surgeon on Tuesday to make sure those things are subsiding. I have not seen him yet since they got home this evening, and I just have not had time yet since I had to do so much to get ready for the ice storm. I will run over there tomorrow.

Also, Barry is on his way home! Hallelujah! I hope he stays safe driving right through the eye of the storm. I expect him some time tomorrow. Yay!

Wow-what a day!

I did not think the end of this day would ever come.

I had a crazy nite last nite with a potential disaster that is not mine to talk about. Very very very scary stuff though.

I was up and at em early this morning because Lorna called me in what I thought was the middle of the nite. Turned out it was 8 am. Oops. I fed ponies, went to spinning and got to St Louis as fast as I could to be there by the time dad got out of surgery, which should have been around 11:30. Needless to say--he was not out for another hour.

The surgeries this week have been a little rough, I guess. He keeps having heart surgeries--his old bypasses are clogged up. Because they have to keep trying, he is developing scar tissue where they do the incision, and keep having to make it bigger and bigger. That, and all the blood thinners he is on, led him to some complications and he had to get some blood transfusions. He is kind of a mess. But doing that through the night, and during surgery today, seems to have settled him down, and the surgery was hopefully a success.

I got to see someone at the hospital that I have not seen in years and years. That was cool. I even like her, and you know how rare that is. When I was little bitty, I spent a lot of time with her and her husband. They were missionaries and she taught at a University in China for a while. They are amazing people. She is widowed now, which is awful, but still so great to see her.

I got myself home, ahead of schedule. Boy howdy was I excited. I knew Madison had fed for me, and I was considering not going to the farm to double check, but I knew I would feel so bad that I would not be able to relax anyway. So I came home, got the water hose and what do I notice? Its cold as a bitch in this house.

I mean COLD. 48 degrees. That is even colder than I can stand it. Since I just got $800 of propane about 5 weeks ago, I was fit to be tied. I had no hot water, but still checked to see if the pilot light was lit on the water heater and it was. Hmm. By the time I figured out that meant I had bigger problems than maybe being out of propane, I was halfway back to the farm to water.
I called the furnace repair dude and left a message.

Barry had some thoughts about what it might be, so while the water ran, I came home. And the craziest thing had happened. It had gotten up to 56 degrees in here. WTF? I am not complaining, but what in the world is going on here?

Back to the farm I went, watered some more, doctored Foxy who really wants to go play. I think I will put her out in a pen tomorrow since it is all frozen and she won't have to fight the mud. I cleaned her stall, finished things up and came home. By then I was itchy with hay reaction so I jumped in the shower. Now I am wondering if I am cold from that, or if it is getting colder in here again.

If it is not one thing, it is another, isn't it?

Oh well, surely it is fixable. I do not know how long furnaces live and this is the original one, from when the house was built in 1996 or so. Does that mean it might be dying?

Ho Hum Ho Hum

I'm bored again. This time not for lack of interesting things to do but more because I have too much to do. So I am not doing any of it. So there. Talk about a successful life plan, huh?

I went to the movies today--Extraordinary Measures. It was really good, even though I was not in the mood for a movie. Very sad, and evidently true, which made it even sadder.

Other than that, I have mostly eaten full time. I'm sure proud of that, let me tell you. No exercise, either, which is like doubling down on failure. Go me.

God willing, Barry will be back home by the end of the week--I sure hope so. This boredom is getting to my brain. Plus, it is going to freeze again this week, which makes everything harder. Although, it might be easier than mud.

On the Foxy front, she is eating her hay again. Now I find it hard to believe that can be since she has only had two doses of ulcer meds--and I think she started eating it before she started the meds. She hates her Probios biscuits, but I think she is eating them, as long as I hide them in her food--unless she is hiding them somewhere in the nine jillion dollars of shavings she is going through daily. Who knows. She got to have a nice day of not wearing her blanket yesterday--she seemed to enjoy airing out. I just kept staring at her like I had nothing better to do.

The best news of the weekend is that Madison is back! I don't know how regularly, but she came back yesterday to help me put the hay spears on the tractor and then blow mud all over both of us. It was really fun, it is amazing how much I have missed her.

Only major action this week is Dad's surgeries, tomorrow and Tuesday. I will go on Tuesday. Then Wednesday, some big work stuff starts happening for a while. In the back of my mind, I realize I need to get on it with the taxes, but we have not gotten BS' W-2s from his original job, and I am a little worried that we may not in a timely manner either, since the company shut down. One more thing that I cannot control but that I obsess about. I am going to commit to getting in ten workouts this week. Has to beat the six that I did this week--which SUCKS.

Cross your fingers that I make it through this week unscathed--and without dropping all these balls....and remind me to tell you about my new intern. I cannot believe people let me be in charge of young lawyers-in-training. I guess that shows I am not the only one with questionable judgment

Project Rebound--Week One Update

I am one dedicated sister. I did these photos in the rain today. That is how dedicated I am to documenting this little project. Also, I snuck a little peek yesterday and got so excited, it would have taken more than a little drizzle to keep me from doing this.
So am I imagining this, or is there a marked weight gain? She has a blanket rub on her shoulder--so I gave her a new one that hits her in a different place. To me, it looks like her hop bones are not protruding nearly as much. But the most significant difference to me is in her top line--it is still sticking up, but it does not look to me like there is a three inch drop off her spine like there was a week ago.
I took these shots in the stall with flash because I did not think the outside shots were showing much detail. This shot above shows the worst part of her spine sticking up.
Since I had a butt shot last week, I took another one. Since I was in the stall though, with my big lens, there was not much butt in the shot. Still though, I think it shows that she has gained quite a bit. I also see it in her thighs, from the side---not as much from the rear, but there may be some gain there. I think that might be the last place she will gain.

But I am really believing now that we are going to beat this. And it has only taken 200 or so pounds of senior in one week---Good Lord, almighty, I did not even believe a horse could eat that much!

Am I crazy? Or is there a big difference from the pics I posted on Saturday--but took a week ago tonight?

Foggy day

These pics were taken around 12:30 this afternoon--while I had a very high end lunch of ham sammich in the truck, while I filled waters, and fed everyone. You could hardly see ten feet in front of you. Look at that mud, and the water standing everywhere--gross gross gross
This one is a bit smarter--she chose to stand somewhere that was not just muck. What is it about horses that makes them CHOOSE the nasty area to stand in? I do not get it. There is perfectly nice ground--at least 3/4 of it is fine--but do they stand there? Nope. They stand in muck. I had to color correct this shot though, because Shiloh was a little further and you could not even see her.


Speaking of weird horse things: Foxy may have finally hit her saturation point on feed....from 9:30 to 12:30, she ate only about ten pounds of senior, instead of the full 20-25 I have her. Even at 5:30 pm, she had only eaten maybe 12-15 pounds! That thrills me, because it makes me think she is finally feeling satisfied. I gave her a little more to put her antibiotics on and will not check on her again tonight--I am not in the mood to go back out in this filth. Tomorrow morning will be fine. I cannot believe she has eaten damn near 200 pounds of senior since I separated her---I have to reload tomorrow
Big Fat Rock got her new dress on today. I was waiting until she totally destroyed her other one before I gave her a new one, and when I got there this morning, she was trapped by shreds of blanket. You can see the carcass of it hanging on the fence now.

I know exactly how she felt too, as when I got to work today, my desk chair got caught on the side of the floor mat, which was ripped and messed up. I was lodged up against the desk and could not move any direction. Fortunately, someone heard me fighting and cussing at it, and came to get me out. Talk about embarrassing--I had to try to stand up and mash even more against the desk, so he could pull the chair out and over the jacked up mat. So ridiculous.

On another note, I bought my plane tix to Houston and we decided to also see the Black Eyed Peas show while I am there, so I got those tix too. That is going to be so fun!

Stage 1- Verdict on Foxy

I got the results of Foxy's checkup last week. First order of business--she has a raging infection somewhere, and it is different than her uterine infection (because those are not systemic and would not have shown up in the tests we did). We do not know where, and it really does not matter--first order of business is to knock that out with tribrissen. So she gets 10 pills a day twice a day. Fun times. At least that is easy to dose.

Next, she is anemic. This means she needs something to boost her up--so she is getting Visorbin. Evidently there is some controversy regarding whether anemia is really something that happens to horses, but that is his diagnosis, so we address it.

Next, she may have an ulcer, so we are going to give her ranitidine for that. Good times. But the way she gets after her food, I wonder just how bad an ulcer she can have if she does have one--since pain will normally put a horse off her feed. They may still eat hay, but grain is something that aggravates it. This one will not be stopped from eating her grain were you to shoot at her with a high powered rifle while she does it. Cannot hurt to give her the ranitidine though, so she will get that too.

And because she will be getting all this mess, she will also get some good probiotics for her tum tum. And salt, because it is not like she is not going through enough water to cause the water company to call me and ask me what in hell is going on over there. I am not sure I get that, but that is what he says, and every time I think the Doc is nuts, I get my comeuppance.

Since most of this stuff is not stocked at my house--there may be some ranitidine laying around unless I pitched it, and I always have tribrissen--Miss Fox will be receiving quite the package of good stuff in the mail soon. I am sure she will be thrilled.

I was running late this morning, so I did not feed her Senior bucket before work. I did not worry that this would be a problem as it would force her to eat on that 1600 pounds of alfalfa in her pen. Mostly she is so busy eating grain that she does not bother with her hay lately--and that is fine, since Senior is a complete feed. And she was getting after the hay tonight, because by the time I got to the farm at 8 pm tonight, she was head deep in it. I brought her in to her stall because it is supposed to rain tonight, and although there is a nice shelter in her pen, she is more likely to stand out in the mud to eat and waste calories sucking her feet up. It took me about two hours to fill all the water troughs and grain everyone (wherein I discovered in the dark that there are some uninvited guests--Gyro and Hawk- in the middle pasture where they do not belong and I am not pleased with that development at all). During that time, she put down about 10 pounds of Senior at least. I really would have thought she would let up by now but she is still eating like a mad woman. She had another 15-20 available to keep her busy. My money says she will have it gone by morning.

On another note, the doc is not at all ruling out Cushings. Linda is pretty sure that is what is going on, as evidently, their immune system goes to hell when they have it. I really hope not. So I am trying to pretend I cannot hear them. We are going to give this infection treatment a stab and see where that gets us, then do another check on her. I am starting to get excited about looking under her blanket on Thursday, as it seems her blankey may be getting a little snug--but I could be totally seeing things I want to see instead of what is there.

So there we are with her.

In other exciting news---today my sister procured the hot tickets for us--Brooks & Dunn at the Houston Livestock Show in March! Even better, it is over my bday and crispy critter weekend. Woo hoo! They are just about my favorite and we quit going to concerts when they started costing hundreds of bucks--plus this is their last tour. She got tix for her and Edward, me and BS. BS will be back working in St L by then, and may or may not be able to go, but we got him a ticket anyway just in case. I realize that is ridiculous, that I quit going because concerts got expensive, yet I will buy a $350 plane ticket to go to one. I would not except I have a $300 voucher to use from getting bumped on last year's Vegas girls' trip and it is about to expire.....I tried to book online tonight, but could not get it done. Hopefully I get that lined out tomorrow--

Parts of my weekend

This has been a weird weekend. Other than Friday evening, when I had sins and debauchery with Jenna and Jessica, I have been exceptionally well behaved. And for once, I was not completely over run with things to do....although now that I say that, it occurs to me that I should have fetched Vixen from the trainer where she has been waiting for the weather to break so she could come home. Crap. I better get on that.

Anyway, yesterday, the new hay came from Indiana. This is a new supplier that I am considering doing full time business with, should the children do well on this hay. He brought me huge bales about 1800 pounds of mostly alfalfa. It is not net-wrapped though, so the unloading of the two truckloads caused there to be much debris all over the front yard. I cannot stand the thought of wasting all that good hay, so I picked up what I could and chucked it into the pasture. Look how nice the children are playing while they share it! But there is definitely one in that mix that does not match.

That was my big activity yesterday--gutting Foxy's stall, dealing with hay, etc....and everything was much more difficult than was necessary because since things have thawed, it is a muddy pit over there. It is absolutely disgusting. It made me need a nap, which I do not think I got around to taking, but I did almost nothing else besides watch TV, read a book and hang out with the dogs. It was swell, but made me miss Barry, who is working hard in Houston still.

I made arrangements for the tractor to go to the shop tomorrow, so today, I had to deliver enough hay to each pasture to last a week while it is gone. I am kind of guessing since these bales are so much bigger than what we have been feeding, and since they are alfalfa and not bermuda, that will set off a feeding frenzy. My children are a little spoiled but have not had any alfalfa round bales all year, so I can imagine the excitement out there tonite. As I delivered the bales, they abandoned their Bermuda to eat what was blowing off the new bales as I drove. It was quite a spectacle. I took four bales the back, and put two in the middle--and moved some horses around so that Foxy can play in the pen with her own round bale and quit pissing up my stall. The mud was so thick that it really bogged down the tractor even in 4-wheel drive. It also blew mud all over me, which I did not notice until I was at the gym, with chunks of mud in my hair. I am such a lady.




On one of my trips home, I found that Peeg had gotten into another mess with a bag. If he was not such a kleptomaniac, I do not think this would happen so often. Cracks me up though---you would think he would teach his cat to get it off of there, but so far that has not happened.
In between all that hay moving, and errand running, I went to the gym TWO TIMES. I found a new feature on my heart rate watch that calculates calories burned based on my weight and my heart rate--according to it, I burned almost 500 calories in 40 minutes on the treadmill the first time I went. Woo hoo! That seems high, but I will take it. The second time, I did not stay quite as long--30 minutes and 250 calories--but I did not run at all the second time, so maybe that was why. I was so proud of me, though. Now we are resting, and Simba looks so cute laying on her pillow in front of the television, I had to take a picture of her. Of course the flash woke her up and she had to start her nap all over again, but it was worth it to get a cute picture of her resting. I hate to admit this, but we are bored. We have watched all the Jersey Shores we have missed, been to WalMart and the Bath and Body Works sale where I got carried away on lotions and shower gels, but will surely smell good soon, and have started two new books. We are still bored. This is so unlike us. We are easily entertained by TV and the internet and thinking about laundry, but it is just not working for us today. And we have tomorrow off, so I have a whole nother day of being bored.
I know I have posted pics like this before, of my neighbors catch pen and loading chute, but honestly, my options of photo material are limited when I am watering the boys here at the house. This is how bored I am--take the same pictures, and post them again.

I need some entertainment, or I will be forced to put up the laundry and maybe throw away some stuff. I hope it does not come to that

Project Rebound-Foxy's first update

I took these photos of Foxy Thursday, but have not had time until now to post them. That turns out to be okay since now I have more info to add to the update
Foxy is 14 hands on a good day. She always has belly, because she is out of shape. Even when she is fit up, she has a belly, come to think of it. Now she has no ass-a-tall (worse even than my friend No-Ass Dirty) and her topline is hideous.

Ignore the scurf from her blankets--it makes her look even grosser than she is. And that aint easy.

This angle makes her look the worst. No thigh at all--and had I had some help, I would have a photo of her with her tail pulled up, so you can see how messed up her back end is. It is embarrassing to show these, but if I am going to be honest about this, I have to show the worst pics. I tried to choose the pics that made her look the worst so I can fairly evaluate her progress.
This is the goo she has been draining out of somewhere. I had already coated it all with Vaseline by the time I thought to take a picture of it. That is just plain nasty, isn't it. On a good note, I do not think she still is draining it.

Since she came in --Tuesday nite, was it, or Wednesday? She has eaten well over a bag of senior--close to two actually, and finally got through about 20 pounds of alfalfa pellets and beet pulp. She goes slower on that because she loves the senior so much that I don't think she bothers with that until she has eaten all her senior. In an hour today, she ate about 12 pounds of senior. She is not paying much attention to her hay, other to strew it all over the damn place. The rest of the time, I think she is just peeing--I had to strip the stall already and start over. In all the years of doing this, I have never seen so much pee.

Yesterday, the vet came to see her. He is doing a fecal and running a full blood panel, but we won't have significant results until early in the week. He is concerned that she may have some bleeding in her bowels, which would explain the goo. I don't think the goo texture is right for blood. I think it is more likely that she has some filthy uterine infection, but he knows better than me. The fecal will tell us more about that. He also thinks she may be diabetic, based on how much she is drinking and peeing. It is true that when she is out, I cannot monitor either of those things, but since I stalled her, she has been drinking a good 15 gallons of water a day and peeing like a freak. In the back of my head, I am hoping she is just going through so much water to make up for having limited access to it over the past ten days since the world was frozen. I do not know if that is even a possibility.


On the other hand, when I am not tending to Foxy, I am changing Rock's clothes. She does this to her blanket every couple of days. It is exhausting. I would strip her off and make her deal since it is so much warmer now, but I hate to get behind on her weight etc at her age.......so maybe I keep doing this til I am out of blankets.


ETA: Approx eight hours after I left the farm with Foxy still working on her senior feed, and with a brand new fresh un-peed in stall, I went back to check on her and feed again. She had finished her senior and was happy to get a new full bucket of it--which if she finishes it tonight will put her at about 30 pounds in one friggin day---and had pooped two or three times. Most significantly--NO FLOOD! In fact, there were no obvious pee spots at all, although I am sure she has peed. She had drank five gallons of water or so--hard to say, since I use a 20 gallon bucket for her, so I am estimating that. It will be at least twelve hours before I check on her again--probably closer to twelve, so it will be interesting to see how this 24 hour period compares to the previous 24 hour periods in terms of pee. If at all possible, I am going to put her in a pen to play all day and pee somewhere I don't have to clean it up.

Project Rebound--Foxy Edition, Fourth Edition

At least I think this is the fourth time we have gone through this with her. It might be the fifth actually. She started her intensive fatten up program tonight. I want to chronicle it in here so I have an easy reference that I cannot accidentally throw away or lose.

Foxy is 16 or 17 this year, I cannot remember right off the top of my head. I think I got her when she was six...I know she is one of the last daughters of Doc Wilson. Most years, she will toddle along just fine with her weight, then I will not pay close attention for a few days and the next time I look, she will look like shit. That can happen when the time changes and I feed in the dark after work...thus not noticing it when it happens. Also, when you look at it every day, you do not notice a pound or two here--but miss a few days and string a few lost pounds together and it is obvious. Some years she does not do it, and some she looks like hell from the time she weans a baby til the next spring. I usually give her a year off in those circumstances.
She actually stays in better flesh when she is in foal. Its odd.

This year, she stayed looking really good until after Thanksgiving. Then I noticed she was not fat like I like her, but about a 5 on the Henneke scale....way better than usual for that time of year. Even up until mid-December when I left for Ft Worth, she looked fine. I was thrilled.

Anyway....about three weeks ago, she came in with the old ladies Rock and Play and they have since been sharing a pen. She gets along well with those alligators, and they even share food. She was headed down weight wise....she looked rough....between a 2 and 4 on the scale but I knew she would spring back with some TLC. They have had a round bale of bermuda to themselves, and also have been fed about 8 pounds of Equine Senior plus about that of alfalfa pellets and a couple pounds of beet pulp every day.

It has been viciously cold, so I gave her a lighter weight blanket as it is the only one handy that would fit her when I got the bright idea mid-snow storm that she needed one...the other girls got heavier turnouts because they are old (28 and 29) and would be far harder to bring back if they got too low. ...plus they are bigger than her anyway so I have more that fit just laying around ready to be used. Since Rock destroys her turnout blanket every other day and has to have a new one put on, I have been checking her occasionally and she is putting on weight, as is Playmate.

Foxy likes to run from us at feeding time, so it was not until this last week that I got to lay hands on her enough to lift her blanket---and damned if she did not look WORSE. I do not get it. She had been getting the good feed poured to her and all the hay she could eat, and I think she looks worse. Barry thought maybe it was not as bad as it looked, just that her hair was mashed down from the blanket. I don't know. But she was shivering, so we put a heavier turnout on top of her orange blanket and started planning the Project Rebound Intensive Program.

First step was to deworm them with the tapeworm stuff. She is dewormed regularly, but what the hell, it was worth a shot to use something I normally do now. They got that last week. Then I had to finish Power Paking the babies and get them out of my barn--that happened yesterday. I was short a stall because the snow blew in to one of them--so I got the babies out and gutted a stall for Foxy tonight. I snuck up on her in the pen and got her in to the new stall, with a full bucket of alfalfa pellets and beet pulp, and another bucket full of senior. I need to reweigh my scoops of senior, but my guess is the bucket is holding close to 20 pounds of senior. She was getting after it pretty serious when I left her tonight. When it stops freezing all the time, I will also add some oil to her diet, but since it is frozen solid right now, I cannot do it now. In the past, I have used Strategy to beef her up and is has worked well---but I thought I would try the Senior so I can let her eat all she wants without concerns that she will founder.

I stripped her off to take pics, but only had my long lens and could not get the camera to focus. She might look better than last week. She is worst in her butt--where she loses the most weight every time. Not so much at the top of her butt but between her thighs, she just withers away. She has plenty of belly, and a touch of rib, but is off at the spine quite a bit. Her teeth were just done this summer and are in good shape. If I can get home at a reasonable hour tomorrow, I will take pics outside so I can track it, and then not look again for another week.

I hate it when this happens. The only way to avoid it is to keep her by herself every fall til the following spring, but that is no way to live. She is not a fan of being stalled long term either, so I will do this for a few days and let her out to play during the warmth this weekend---unless it is super muddy from the thaw--that burns too many calories. She is bedded down in such thick shavings that I know if I were to sneak up on her right now, she would be crashed out snoozing. That will keep her pretty happy for a few days, while she eats every waking moment.

Winter fat

In an effort to make myself feel better about gaining ten pounds or so since Thanksgiving--I have been searching for other things that are fatter than me. The first one I found was Sly. He always porks up big during the winter. This year he is so fat that I have cut his grain out--he is this fat on his round bale. Oddly, Fonzie is perfect size, and Twister is looking all crazy. But Sly is just fat.

See what I mean? He looks closer to foaling than any of the mares that actually are going to foal. Poor fat man. I sure do love him, but these complaints of his about the snow lasting so long are getting old. Since his water spigot has been frozen, and his water trough frozen solid, I have been delivering his water in buckets to the back gate--close to his round bale and close to the house so I can fill the buckets inside. He is a smart boy, so after the first day, he would run to the gate as soon as he heard me pull in the driveway. If I did not get out there straight away, he hollered until I got out there.

Finally, we got his spigot thawed, and that was when we realized his hose was frozen. I brought that in to thaw, and today was the day to put water in his trough on top of the frozen stuff. By that time, it appeared the new tank heater had quit. Of course it had. That gave me something to worry about last nite. In some moment of grace, today I got it all together--got the thawed hose to the barn, got the water to run, and somehow reset the tank heater so it would all work together.

One last element was missing--the horses. They are so sure their water should be delivered that they had to be fetched from the back and shown the water. That required me to tromp through the snow in my workout clothes and good tennis shoes. But by God, I did it. I only wish I had taken my camera back there as they were a hoot to watch bucking and showing off for me.

Twist was thrilled, but Sly was not sure he should have any part of it--I think he probably got shocked by the last malfunctioning one that started a fire. Maybe Twist is just dumb, and Sly was letting him be the guinea pig. I don't care, I am just glad that one hard chore is off my daily list. I have plenty of other stuff to do with my life than deliver water to those boys, who mostly play with it and throw it at each other anyway.

Now back to the Plumping up of Paige. That shit has to stop. To that end, I wore myself slap out tonite. I had an hour training session with the Beast--a pretty hard one, which is good. Then I ran to the farm, fed and hayed, and back to the gym, for a 5:30 spinning class. When I got there, I took off my jacket and pounds of alfalfa pellets fell out on the floor. That was a little embarrassing. I felt like I was on some hidden camera show. I lived through that--then I got all brave and went to a 6:20 Body Sculpting class.

I had never been, and turned out the teacher was someone I have known for a while. The class was packed, and I hid so I could not see myself in the mirror. I did the whole thing, without even thinking I was going to die. Well mostly. This is the first time I went to a regular person's aerobics class. I think I can swing this shit. The best part is that by the time I got everyone watered, and got home, I am too tired to eat much.

Somehow, I still think Sly will lose his winter fat before I will. But I am trying!

More proof of my weird world

Look what happened at our house today. I think Bocephus was sunning, next to the garage---one of the few places with no snow, so he could lay down. Evidently Charlie thought that looked like an ideal place to rest too. When Barry first saw it, Charlie was asleep on Boce's back, upside down. By the time he got me out of the house with my camera, Boce was up and Charlie was awake.
I got a few shots before Charlie hopped down and came to see what all the laughing was about.

If these two are not the best pair ever, I cannot imagine what it would take to top them

Think its cold here?

Doesn't Gypsy look cold? This was yesterday--before the snow started. It just looked cold out there to me. But look how cute her little baby tummy is. I love her.





Ok, this is really cold. This tank froze over nite all the way through 100 gallons despite this working heater. We can not get ahead of it, so I have been wagging buckets for the boys. Their spigot is also frozen. Thus the buckets carried from the house. I swear I carried 17 5 gallon buckets to water three boys the first nite. Then I figured outa hose would be handy so I bought another one, and it was too short. But I only had to lug buckets 25 feet instead of 75 so I was cool with that.

Now I am out of town to go on a prison visit and Barry had to come home to take care of everything. He seems to have gotten caught up in a football game, and found that something had gone berserk with the farm spigot and it is frozen. Everyone is good except the stalls--but hey, they have to drink too! He will figure it out though, and I am not going to keep nagging him about it.

I finally gave in to go to the doc today about my crazy rash and face that looks like the cheese grater got me. It is out of control allergy problems---I got steroids, new allergy meds, and an ointment to put on my eyes. The steroids are already making me feel better but I still look absolutely insane., with red rimmed puffy rough eyes. Not at all cute. Good thing I was in a car all afternoon and evening with some other lawyers, laughing our butts off. I have not had so much fun on the interstate in a long time. My face hurts from laughing so hard....or any number of other reasons, come to think of it.

We have some serious business tomorrow and then have to make the long trek back home again---where we will be getting temperatures lower than we have had in like 30 years. This pig of mine will end up sleeping in the bathroom yet, to keep him warm enough, and I don't think even Barry will argue with me. We had about three inches of snow when I left today, but were due to get more. That is huge for our house, where it rarely snows and NEVER gets this cold. We have not been over freezing in about ten days I think. New hay is supposed to be delivered on Saturday but I may call and see if we can delay it, due to weather....who wants to stand out in that and unload a semi? It is dangerous out there now---5 below tonight, the weather says. ouch. I don't know how you cold place people live like this

Poopsicles

Go ahead, guess who has horse shit in the fridge?

Not that hard to figure it out, huh? Right up in there next to the mustard selections, is a bag of poop. And I anticipate having more poop, so the current poop is in a bag with Daisy's name on it. You don't see that every day.

I got the full necropsy report today, and one of the findings was that there was great parasite damage. I find that so frustrating because I am rabid about deworming. I start them at two months with Panacur, then move up to ivermectin. So by the time she died suddenly, Ghostie had been dewormed at least 5 times. Probably even six. And yet she had adult nematodes all up in there. How in the hell does this happen?

It was not what killed her but they had done a lot of damage. The pathologist told me on the phone that she was never healthy, and had some immune system failures, but I did not know then that there was parasite damage, so I could not ask if her immune issues would allow the parasites to hurt her more than normal, or make the dewormer not work, or just how it all plays together.

So on Nena's advice, I am doing fecals on the babies to see what in the hell is going on. That is not as easy as you would think, since it is so dang cold that it is practically frozen the second it hits the ground. I want some solid answers on what is going on around here--it does not make sense that my deworming program is not working on the babies, since I am using ivomec, which supposedly has no resistance issues.

The worst part is that I have big dealings in court tomorrow, and you know full well my day will get out of whack and I will end up before the Court with shit in my purse before I get time to or remember to drop it at the vet's. And if you don't know that by now about me, you just are not paying attention.

In other news, I wore the new Carharrts to feed. That is sweet. And I needed them because the spigot is still frozen at the boys' barn, which requires me to hand water these fools in the back behind the house. This requires me to fill a 5 gallon bucket then drag it to them. Twist drinks first, til Sly moves him off, then Sly tumps it over. I start all over. I gave them a 20 gallon bucket to pour it into, but every time I would go fill the 5 gallon bucket, they would run off with the big one. I would have to go into the back pasture to fetch it back. That is also not as easy as it sounds, since we have a high tech rope tying that gate shut and inevitably I will shock myself on the hot wire trying to finagle it. And it is unGodly cold--8 degrees tonight, so even touching anything after drawing water made me stick to stuff. I am not a fan of sticking to stuff. Under any circumstances.

But that is all over now, I am in the house and the muscle aches are setting in--I had a great workout with the Beast today, and got in almost an hour of spinning, so I am stiffening up. It is time to quit jacking around here and get back on the program hard. Let's see how I do tomorrow since it is going to be a tough day all around.

Funny things that have happened already this year

Today, we watched Sly through the window as he seemed to be asleep under a tree in the pasture--but then stood up on his hind legs and pawed the air, only to plant his feet again and go back to sleep. It was very odd. I got dressed and went out to see what was wrong--he appeared to have some baling twine around his head.

When I got there, he ran from me. In 9 years of owning him, he has never even considered running from me. He loves me like the wind. I could see he had a long string of baling twine around his neck, and was dragging it behind him. When he would step on it, it would hurt so he would boing up into the air again. He did not even want me to touch him, and definitely not the twine. It was quite a conundrum.

I followed him most of the way to the barn, and was grateful to have my handy dandy knife in my pocket. I started cutting the parts of the twine he would let me touch, and finally worked up to his neck--he was calm by then thank God. Poor fool was a mess. He is doing much better now.

When it was off, I went to check their water, which was of course frozen. I knew the tank heater in that tank had an issue so I had intended to buy a new one, I just had not yet. I have been able to stay ahead of it by cracking the water a lot, but since last night, all 100 gallons had frozen solid. I decided to throw the heater in there to get a jump on it--get it thawed at least a little. I was watching it really closely and it seemed fine, but as soon as I turned my back to go to TSC to buy a new one, Barry started pointing and hollering. We had a damn fire in the water trough. Who knew you could have fire on ice? Take my word for it, you can.

Off we went to TSC to get new tank heaters and for me to finally break down and buy some Carhartts. Yes, its true, I have been feeding in the winter for 10 years with no Carharrts. I felt like a tool trying them on at TSC--I had to get men's since they only had about 4 pairs of womens ones. That led to a discussing of what size waist I would be if I were a man. I had no idea, so Barry just kept pulling them out to have me try on. I fel like a little kid. Suffice it to say, my waist and length size is appalling for someone who has been working out so hard. But then again, it is a hell of a lot less than last year. We make fun of my dad's pants size (40 x 29), and I will admit I am not a hell of a lot better off. I am happy to have my new green Carhartt get up, even if I do look like a landscaper according to Barry--which even he admits is better than looking like a turd, which I would have had they had brown ones for me. I just do not want to get mine mixed up with his, so I needed some other color than black.



We also got a new battery charger, as Dad's 40 plus year old ones are just not cutting the mustard anymore. The clamps fell off the big one--just rotted straight through--and the little one I just borrowed is just not strong enough. I have not had it long but he has already pointed out that he has had it 40 years and it was fine, until I borrowed it--now the guage is broke. He does not see that it might be its age that is the the problem. Also, if it cannot be outside to charge something, it is not that damn useful is it? The Gator battery, which is new, is dead outside- because I just almost never drive the Gator in the house, so that it could die there. What am I thinking?

It has been nice having Barry home since Thursday nite---Sunday nite makes a big difference. When he was working in Chicago, he could not stay on Sunday nite. We have seen some movies, shopped a little, eaten out with friends, and got some farm work done. We were unable to scrape the contaminated manure from the baby pen though because it is flat frozen to the ground. I guess that will have to wait until it thaws--which we hear will not be for at least a week. I had blocked off that area though so that no one could get near it. So far, I have seen no signs of illness in anyone else. The two yearlings who have been in to be fattened up have done it, so they will be allowed out on pasture tomorrow. I have the most absurdly busy week this week, but I hope to be able to turn the other babies out on Wednesday afternoon--which may be the only time I get to myself all week. I know they don't like being stalled, and who can blame them?

The other big news is that my computer keyboard has been replaced without me sending my computer in. HALLELUJAH! Michelle told me at Christmas that I could order one from ebay and put it in myself--no need to ship computer off at all. Barry just replaced it tonight so I am back to being a borderline normal person--it was not convenient to have an external keyboard hooked up to it, but that is sure what I was doing. What a doofus.

That is pretty much all I have to say---I need my interesting life back. It gives me way more to write about--I realize these things are not that interesting. Its all I've got though, so bear with me