Not very cold here

...But we got 20 inches of snow.  It is hard to know where to measure, with drifted and scoured snow, but checking here and there that is the estimate for this storm.  Luckily the follow-up rain hasn't materialized yet, making everything not completely clear into ice.

I am feeling a little cabin fever-ish right now, but I got some new yarn yesterday in the mail from Turkey, a dark heather gray color, to make a scarf along with a lacey pattern in cameo pink on the reverse side.  I finally gave up on the decorated hat, it was too complicated for me at this stage of my knitting ability.  The pink and the gray should make the pattern stand out on both sides.

The colic-y horse Willie is back on regular rations and seems all over his colic .  The farrier came yesterday and said his hooves look great, even, uncracked, and he was not even sore on the right hind leg (the horse, not the shoer) which he sometimes resists having it picked up.  Usually that is really the left hind that is sore (and has to take all the weight when the right side is picked up) but either way the bute (horse aspirin) given the day before seems to do the trick.  Both horses got wormed (ick) as they do every 8 weeks when the shoer comes, and though the winter blankets and winter coats make them look like Mongolian ponies, they are warm and, under the blankets, clean.  My very first horse, all those years and years ago, was a palomino, and I kept him clean and groomed every day.  I boarded for a while at the stables in Golden Gate Park, and when I washed his white mane, and dried it with a blow dryer,we never failed to attract a crowd.  Old times.  He was 22 when he died.  I miss Poco still.

 Thought for the day:  "Lottery:  A tax on people who are bad at math."

Poco

 

 

 

 

 

Blizzard?

Well,the forecast is for 8 to 12 inches of new snow beginning this afternoon; and every function in the area for this weekend has been canceled.  I wonder what a wedding scheduled for the weekend will do?  And I can't help remembering the time when John Rockefeller was governor here in WV and a huge snowfall was predicted.  He called for the National Guard, canceled all the state and university activities, and we got zip.  After that, snow could be 4 feet drifted and he wouldn't call anything off.  Once bitten...

DH was at the grocery store yesterday to pick up 2 items, and never thought to get milk or orange juice (a vital necessity) and thus he went out this morning.  They were restocking the milk when he got there, the crowds he dreaded were nowhere to be seen, the shelves were pretty depleted and all the snow shovels had been sold out.  I think we should buy milk every time we are in the store, we will never run out!  The other big item everyone stocks before a storm is, you guessed it, bathroom paper.  We are fortunately OK there, as it was sold out except for weird brands and single Scott rolls.

Best of all, both DD and DS have today off, as the storm should be OK to go to work, but a mess to get home.  We even got a call from the pharmacy to make sure all our (many) scripts are filled in case the roads are impassable.  Do you think they would refill my hydrocodone pills?  No, I don't think so either.

I am doing the never ending task of laundry today, hoping we don't lose the power.  I was in the shower one evening and the power went out.  It is dark in there!  And my hair was all soapy so I couldn't just step out.  I keep a flashlight nearby now, just in case history repeats itself.

My birthday is soon, I got my driver's license renewed last week, and I don't even recognize myself in the photo.  I forgot to tip my glasses up and so my eyes look like Orphan Annie from the flash making a white spot on the lenses.  My jacket hood is visible on one side, and makes me look hunchbacked.  And worst of all, my double chin shows!  Sigh...

Thought for the day:  " Who needs a spring chicken when you can have a well-seasoned bird?"

This is your brain on chocolate

 

  All the Christmas candy is GONE!  Even the fruitcake! Who could have eaten it all? (Burp).

I was sure that I had written another post in January, but it only seems to reside in my brain, and not here.  So I will get something down today before all you lovely people will be reduced to reading cereal boxes (my nearest competitor).

Last week we had a new crisis.  C went out to feed the horses and came running back to the house to tell us Willie (24 year old gelding) was colic-ing.  He was cast in his stall (laying so close to the wall that he couldn't get his legs under him to stand up).  We un-cast him ( a simple (!!) matter of flipping him upside down) but he had sweated so much his blanket literally dripped.  We stripped that off and put on a dry one, and began the tedious business of walking him round and round to keep him on his feet.  I had some injectable smooth muscle relaxing med to keep him comfortable (well...) and we dosed him with mineral oil to ease things along, so to speak, until the vet came.  The vet gave him several different meds and listened to his gut sounds until he could hear normal rumbles.  He was here around an hour, and the bill was $$$, but the alternative was a horse that rolled until his gut twisted, and that equals a dead horse.  Post treatment he has recovered well, although he is on a no-grain regimen.  Horses are really poorly engineered, one whose only defense is to run away, and to have no way to vomit or even burp, so everything has to exit at the rear of the bus.  We will never know the cause of this - did the casting come before or after the colic?  I really don't think he has ever done this before, and since he was born here I have a pretty good handle on his medical history.  We'll just have to keep an eye on him closely until springtime.  Don't you wish you had horses?

We have been having snow showers the last few days, and it is snowing now.  I have a different attitude about snow than I did when I was a teenager growing up in Miami FL.  All I wanted was to be able to play in it, and when I was in college in SC that is what we did.  Now, though, I understand what people meant when they said, you haven't driven in it.  I am a total chicken, and not having to work means we can postpone appt and non-critical trips indefinitely.  And of course there is worrying about R and C having to drive in it.  I should be glad that this little snow is the most we have had so far this winter.  All the trees and flowers are confused, and several have started to bloom (forsythia, cherry, and the hosta is starting too) so I don't know if they will bloom again in the spring, or is this it for the year?

Thought for the day:  "Oh, no!  Not ANOTHER  learning experience!"