Equine Photo Overkill

I have a new volunteer and her name is Amy. She’s 18 and wants to be a vet. She has long blonde hair, legs up to her neck, and if I was half as beautiful when I was that age I would have been dangerous. Glenn is not allowed to meet her.

Amy loves horses. So much so that she wants to smell like them. All the time. Except for the beautiful part, she reminds me a lot of me at that age.

Amy’s mom has an awesome camera, even better than my new toy. She even knows how to use hers, unlike someone else I know. They both came out on Thursday morning to take pictures of the horses in the rain. Not only that, she took one hundred and fifty pictures! And I thought I was crazy for taking 50 pictures of a rabbit!

Well yeah, ok. Maybe that really was crazy.

So here are the ones that I really liked. Yes, there are a lot of Kita pictures. So sue me.

Somebody help me, these mares are nothing but trouble, especially with Willow in the lead.

Beet pulp nose. Kind of like a milk mustache, but even cuter.

Oddly, out of all of those pictures I didn’t see Jewel, Duchess, Maggie, Marbles, Frisky, or Kenzie. She did get a couple of pics of Ellie, but they were very far off. It turns out Ellie was terrified of the umbrella. Did you know umbrellas can eat small ponies? I didn’t either, but it must be true!

Travis in Wonderland

I’ve been taking Elvis (used to be Elvira the Silkie, but she had a sex change) out to the garden with me the past couple of days since it’s been overcast and fairly cool.  He loves helping with the gardening, but unfortunately he prefers earthworms to potato beetles.  Unless I hand pick the potato beetles for him.  Then he’ll kill them, but not eat them.   Whatever, as long as they’re dead!

The only problem is that he doesn’t want me to leave him alone.  If I so much as move to a different bed, he throws a little hissy fit until he either figures out a way to follow me, or I come back and get him.  It’s terrifying in the great wide world, best to have a big scary human with you at all times when you’re out of your hutch.  So today I thought why the heck not, let’s take Travis out to the garden to keep Elvis company.  I haven’t taken any of the bunnies out to the garden with me yet, so this was a first.  I picked Travis because A) he’s best buddies with Elvis, and B) he’s big and fat and probably can’t out hop me if he decided to be hard to catch.

The first thing he did when I put him down in the grass was to climb up my leg and sniff my knee.  Then he realized that there was a veritable buffet of greens at his disposal and off he went to explore.

 

Even though he didn’t go far, he’d always come hopping back to make sure I was still there to protect him from lions, and tigers, and bears.

And Woogies.

 

Woogie was very interested in the garden happenings today.  But the poor old guy is too arthritic to jump the 3’ fence and come in to investigate. 

After a mere 10 minutes, Travis was exhausted from all the eating and hopping he had accomplished so he lay next to the fence with Elvis and waited for me to pick him up and take him back to the hutch.

 

I can’t believe I took nearly 50 pictures of Travis.   I think there might be something wrong here.

I’m easily amused

I love looking at the google analytics to see what people searched on in order to get to my blog.  Sometimes this blog is one in thousands of results, and sometimes it’s one of a few.  Today’s hit came from Manila and this post was number two of only five results.   How cool is that??  My little blog, coming in second place!  Where’s my red ribbon???

And I REALLY don’t want to know why they were searching on “slither up his pants”.

Leader of the pack

Frisky has always kept Maggie and Marbles close at hand.  When Kenzie joined the herd, she was readily accepted into Frisky’s little herd of youngsters.  Gentry hangs with them on occasion, as does Jewel, but mostly they just stick to themselves.

Now there seems to be a new leader of the midgets emerging.  Maggie has taken on the roll of adventurer and is always the first to check out something new.   Like my camera. 

“What the heck is that hanging around mom’s neck??”

 

"I dunno.  You think it’s food?”

 

 

“Nah, it ain’t food.  Let’s go find some shade to stand under.”

 

Maggie was one of the mares that got the abortion shot the yesterday when Doc was here.  Marbles has been losing his worm belly, but Maggie’s gut has just been getting bigger and her back muscles have started to sag.  Before she came here, she was turned out in the same pasture with dear old dad and she’s old enough to become pregnant.  She was a lot better about getting shots than either Marbles or Kenzie, but still wasn’t all that happy about being stuck with a needle.   Maybe if Doc brings lollipops next time they’ll be better behaved.

I’m SORRY

I feel I have to apologize right off the bat for this post.   Marbles was the only little stud muffin to get gelded today because Quill refused to have a halter put on him.   I played with him for an hour this morning and got him to the point where he’d even let me pick up his feet and clean them out.   I could get a lead rope around his neck, but as soon as he’d feel the resistance he’d go berserk.  I tried putting the halter in his food bucket then slowly slipping it over his ears, but that didn’t work either.  So in the end, Quill only got to watch as Marbles did the hard part.

And because this is an edumacational blog (yeah, right), I took lots of pictures so I could learn ya’ll somethin'.  

First, Doc had to get Marbles sedated, and he really doesn’t like shots.  He bounced around, drug me around a bit, but in the end Doc’s aim proved true and the happy juice was administered.  Then we covered his eyes and tied his back leg up to his halter.  This way that leg can’t kick out and nail Doc in the head.  Some vets just ask that a handler hold the leg,  but Doc said he’s had people do that before that get to yakking and not paying attention and let that leg fly anyway. 

 

Then a liberal application of iodine to cleanse the area…

 

 

Any male readers may want to go to another website right about now.

 

 

Colts can yank their danglies back up into their body so that they don’t dangle anymore and have to be pulled out by hand.   Once the sac is out, Doc slits the sac so he can squeeze out the testicle.

 

 

 

When everything is pulled out and exposed, Doc uses a special clamp to close off the blood vessels.  The clamp has to remain on for two minutes.

 

After two minutes, the same clamp also has a blade, which makes a clean cut to separate the testicle from the pony.

 

 

And then, well, there it is.  Rinse and repeat for dangly number two and congratulations, you have a bouncing baby gelding!

 

Now tell the truth, aren’t you glad I shared?  Don’t you feel enlightened now?  :)

New Camera Fun

I have been busier than a puppy with two peters this weekend.  I feel like most of my time has been spent running hither and thither picking up this, buying more of that.  Fence posts, feed, straw for the garden, lumber to build the feed bin I’ve been wanting for months, square bales for my old fogies, more hay rolls for the rest of the herd, etc.  Of course, all of those errands are in separate directions, so combining a trip isn’t always efficient.  Poor Bessie has been getting quite the workout this weekend!  By the time I get home at night and take the hour and a half necessary to feed all the horses, I’ve been falling into bed around 10:30.  Forget dinner, who needs to eat? 

Today I actually got home early and had a couple of hours to walk around the yard after the thunderstorm and play with the new camera.  So here I am, sharing again.  Please don’t hate me if you have dial-up.

I love the macro feature on this camera.

 

This is a forgotten onion from last year.  Yay for seeds!

 

 

I really don’t know what it is, but I could spend all day taking pictures of chickens.   They look so fluffy and soft and they’re so photogenic.

 

Especially the baby ones.

 

 

 

I’m pretty sure Megalia, like most women, would not appreciate me putting this picture on the blog.   Butt shot on a bad hair day with her tongue sticking out.. enough said? 

 

 

Have a great week ya’ll!

Reflections

 

The picture and title have nothing to do with anything, but I bought a new camera yesterday and this is the first picture I took with it.  And you know how I like to share.

I’m on vacation starting 4pm today.  Need I tell you how incredibly happy that makes me?  I won’t even tell you what I plan on doing next week, because last time I took vacation I didn’t get much of anything done thanks to rain and nasty weather.   Since it’s been raining for the past three days, I don’t want to jinx myself again this time.  Suffice it to say I’ll be busy.

Doc is coming out to spend the day on Tuesday, gelding, vaccinating, floating, etc.  I hope to get a ton of pics and post about it Tuesday night, cause, well, you know, it’ll be exciting.  The rest of the week it’s just me and my hammer, so who knows what will happen. :)

Chivalry is dead

and so is my garden. :(

Let’s start with chivalry.  When I left the house last night to get hay after unloading the feed, the sky was blue, the sun was shining, and there was no reason for me to think it would rain.   As the last roll was being tied down to the trailer, the skies began to darken and distant thunder could be heard. 

Yug.

Problem number one:  Bessie can’t get into the pasture if the ground is the least bit wet, which means I can’t offload the hay.

Problem number two:  The wind was blowing like crazy and I was afraid to drive to quickly in case I came across a tree blocking the road so there was no way I was beating the storm home.

Which leads me to chivalry.  I did indeed come across a small tree blocking the whole road.   The rain was coming down in buckets, the wind about knocked me off my feet when I got out of the truck, and there was another truck coming from the other direction.  Yay!  Help has arrived!

Or not.

No one got out of the other truck, so I continued yanking, pulling, and otherwise playing tug-o-war with this tree, eventually moving it at least enough so that one car could pass by at a time.  I got back into Bessie thinking the driver of the other truck must have been an older person or another woman.

Or not.

The driver was a youngish man, about my age.  He was wearing coveralls with his name stitched on his chest.   He waved and smiled, then drove on by.

I rest my case on chivalry.  Now on to the garden. 

We got A LOT of rain in a very short period of time.

 

 

And as I’m driving home I’m thinking that at least I don’t have to water the garden.

 

Then I got home and found that I will probably never have to water the garden again this year.  Or harvest, or can, or freeze.

Hail.  Yet another four letter word.  I was hoping we’d be done with four letter words until October.

 

 

It was a good weekend.  I finally got the garden fenced in this past weekend to protect it from marauding chickens, and got all 40 tomato plants and most of my peppers planted.

And then this happened.

 

 

 

Even my potatoes and beans were affected.

 

One pathetic mater seedling was split in two.

 

Oh well.  I hadn’t put out the eggplants yet and still have a few extra tomato transplants I can put out.  Hopefully, everything else will recover in time.   Meanwhile, I think I’ll curl up into a fetal ball, suck my thumb, and hook up an IV to some Cherry Garcia ice cream.

I’m too brain dead to come up with a title

Please forgive me.

The first family that I hired to work around here did not work out.  I won’t go into details because I’m over it.   Luckily, I had already hired someone else to replace fence, who said “sure, we can mow and weed eat too, and whatever other little projects you have”.  GREAT!  How about starting with the outhouse remodeling?

They started yesterday and the outhouse is now the “in” place to hang if you’re a young chicken or guinea.   The guys are sinking fence posts today and I think it’s pathetic how excited I’ve become over new fencing. 

 

The only thing left to do is put a different handle on the door.  The one that’s on there now is a lever and I’m pretty sure there’s a certain black and tan dog around here who is smart enough to get it open. 

Do I need to tell you how STUPID the meat birds are?  They go out, but can’t figure out how to get back in.  So last night I’m out there in the dark with a flashlight, lying on the floor of the outhouse hanging halfway out their door and trying to catch the eight moronic meat birds that couldn’t find their way back in to safety. 

Maybe I’m the stupid one?

Looks like I’ll be doing the same thing tonight.  This one has been sitting outside for hours, which is why I put some water and food out for him. 

 

At least the guineas and young pullets are a bit smarter.  They’ve been going in and out without any help from me.

Hello incredibly ugly little dinosaur.

 

I got home late last night to find Jasmine and Sky marching down the road looking for me.   At least I’d like to think they were looking for me, but probably not.   I went home to get a bucket of feed, but they were already headed back down the driveway.  I guess the smart little hussy knows Bessie truck = food lady.  Rather than try and fix the fence at 9:30 at night, I put them in with the main herd.  Buh bye, have fun, see you in the morning.  I was really too tired to care at that point.  Loading 640lbs of concrete mix, 30 fence posts, and a 25 cubic foot chest freezer on to the truck and trailer does that to me.

I spent most the night wondering if they were ok and if anyone was chasing them.   I should have known better and just gotten some sleep!  When I went up to the barn earlier, Jasmine and Gentry were cozied up together whispering sweet nothings at each other.   Neither her or the baby had a scratch on them or any sweat marks like they’d been running all night.  Jasmine gave me her familiar nicker that she uses to greet me every time I’m near and Sky gave me a sideways glance to see if I had a bucket of food, then went back to snoozing.

I would really like to do the same right about now.  But after work I need to feed everyone, go get more feed, come home and unload it, then go back out to get four more hay rolls, come home and unload those, then go back out in the other direction for horse water, then come home and fill up the troughs.

Ugh.