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!"
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