We’re going way back to the horses very first Yule with us.
Freezing cold, they’d been here only 39 days, and I wanted holiday pictures.
The surprise and horror on Cookie’s face!
Ruby was having none of these shenanigans…no matter how much Hubby tried to convince her.
And then there’s Sable…who with the very first shoot was a rock star, ready to pose.
How?
How can it be November already?
I feel like this summer, this fall have gone by so fast.
Never enough time to get it all done, still so much left to do before winter sets in for real…
This week alone:
Hubby and I filled my deer tag. (Yay!)
The 3 of us did the cut/wrap on the deer for the freezer.
I put up 10 quarts of chicken soup.
I canned a canner load of cat food from scraps from chicken butchering.
We moved a building…I have pictures of that to come!
We bottled the apple raspberry wine.
Started a concord grape wine.
Discovered yet another place where one of our hens is hiding eggs…she wants to raise chicks sooooo bad! I hope she’s the same way come spring. 🙂
That’s on top of the regular stuff…
Hubby still went to work every day.
Kiddo still did school, plus her extra curriculars.
I still ran around after the animals here and made sure they were all healthy, while taking pictures and doing edits.
So we’re tired.
But it’s a good tired. 😉
And now, we’re coming up fast on 1 year…
And my heart.
Sweet Epona, my heart…
❤
I still miss her so, so much.
And yet, after the fact, I know she was suffering.
Had I known then what I know now, I wouldn’t have let it go on.
I would have given her a grand day of love, with all her favorite meals and treats and said goodbye that way.
It is my 1 regret, that I didn’t know, that I didn’t do better for her.
We did a thing, Hubby, Kid and I…
Most know I kept her skull.
Well, this summer it was in the maceration tub getting cleaned.
It’s not 100% done, but we had to get it out of the water before freeze up. Freezing in the water would have caused irreparable damage.
So, we did a thing…
This was my Hallowe’en image:
Taken under our tree. ❤
I have a few other from the session that I’ll post on the 1 year day.
It was an emotional, Powerful photo shoot.
It’s one I’m proud of.
Once she’s completely cleaned, degreased and whitened, I plan on painting a few decorative images on her (though that might change, we’ll see).
What won’t change is the photo essay I plan with her…
In her life with me, the thought of leaving her pasture scared terrified her…just coming out into the yard to graze was more than she could handle, no matter how hard we worked on it.
It was what it was.
Ah, but now, my dear sweet darling will travel!
And she’ll be photographed in all the places I wanted to take her in life, meeting all the people I wanted her to meet, but couldn’t.
This I look forward to doing.
It’ll be hard at times.
Emotional…powerful.
But so worth doing.
❤
But, that’ll be next year.
I’ll apologize now, if I go missing ’til the 13th.
I’m trying to stay up on things, but this may get to me.
Hopefully once things settle down with Freezer Camp, hunting and winterizing I’ll post more…
Okay, I promise I will!
Sometimes though, it’s just easier to throw myself into the daily grind a little harder when I’m missing her.
And sadly that means y’all get shorted on content.
I’m workin’ on that.
❤
Here’s a couple of pictures of my 3 Stooges for your enjoyment…
Staff meeting…
On the agenda, how to avoid the beepy thing.
Especially now that the Food Lady has turned off the beep.
Can’t have her catching us in those fun, but compromising positions!
The look I get when I ask what they were discussing at their meeting…like I didn’t already know! 😉
Happy Sunday all!
❤
It’s been a chilly week!
But things here on the Farm are still chugging along.
🙂
The chickens are starting to lay with a little more consistency.
Finally!
We’ve waited a long time to get these eggie chicks to the point of lay. Soon enough, I should have some eggs that I can sell again.
That will be nice!
I’ve had a few green shelled eggs from the easter egger hens, but not many. I have 4 hens that should be giving me colours (maybe 5, I’m not 100% sure) but I’ve had 3 green eggs…and the easter eggers are older than the brown egg layers, who are getting a little more regular…
One morning last week though, it was really cold and I figured I best check the auto waterer to make sure the Merry Mares water hadn’t frozen over on them…imagine my surprise when Daphne dives under a board in the long grass…I’m thinking “oh shit, she found a skunk!!” but with no immediate stink blast, I figured that couldn’t have been it.
Nope.
Turns out she chased one of my little black hens off a nest of eggs…
16 eggs!!
Stinker had been out all night, instead of coming back to the coop, and was just plain lucky *something* didn’t find her in the night and make a meal of her!
But, she had 16 eggs under her, 10 of which were green.
Not knowing how long they were there, I took them away and float tested them. They seemed like they might be alright, but I still wasn’t sure. So, I cracked them all open.
Turns out, they were fine, though only a handful were fertilized.
Even if the all had been, it’s not a great time of year for chicks anyways…but I now know which hen could be broody in the spring. She, and a few other hens, will get separated off with the one rooster we keep to lay and set eggs in the spring for flock regeneration. Honestly, I’d love to get away from buying hatchery birds for eggs, if I can. And if I can get hens to do the hatching work that’s even better. I have no real interest in using an incubator.
I scrambled the 16 eggs and gave them to the chickens as a treat…their excitement at that made the sting of losing 16 eggs a little less painful.
lol
And then, there was Daphne and her stick…
“I want this one!”
Pulling the stick out of the hobo barrel fire pile…
“MY STICK”
She was rather proud of herself for getting it…
“I am triumphant!!”
*sigh*
My dog is weird.
It’s 5am here.
I’ve been up since 3:30am.
Drinking tea, sitting with cats, listening to the Other 2 snore…
I can’t sleep.
Again.
It’s nothing new. I have always had a hard time sleeping.
Insomnia is my oldest friend.
Today is a little different though.
Today, The Kid starts grade 12.
Already.
And I’m feeling my age…
Soon enough, she’ll be 18.
She’ll be deciding what she wants to do with her life…
She’ll want to move out.
And as much as time is always moving forward, and we all have to grow and go on, I’m not ready.
I’m not ready to be the parent of an adult.
She’s an amazing person.
I love her to the moon and back.
I’m very proud of the person she’s grown into.
And, I think she’ll do great things with her life.
But, I’m not ready to be the Mama of an adult child…
as if I have any choice!
LOL
Riding a Friend’s horse in a local parade. ❤
Things I am thankful for this week:
Sable eating her cookie…with previcox hidden inside. 😉
a. Flax/apple cookies.
They make giving her a pill soooooo much easier.
Eating a bouquet of alfalfa flowers…
2. Fancy molasses. And oats.
Since she’s been on antibiotic pills instead of shots, we’ve had to be creative with getting them into her.
Without a fight, that is.
Molasses and oats in her beet pulp, with her ground up pills and it all gets slurped up in record time.
Trying to steal Ruby’s alfalfa bouquet…
c. She’s feeling better.
A whole lot better.
But, she’s also coming onto the last couple of days of antibiotics and I’m nervous about whether or not she’s going to stay better or relapse…
Garden tomatoes…
d. Fresh tomatoes from the garden.
This is the biggest haul of red tomatoes we’ve had since we moved to the Farm. It’s been challenging (to say the least) the get the garden off the ground. Especially since I had the whole technique down pat in the city…
It’s getting better every year, and that’s something to be thankful for.
Astrid enjoying her flowers while Ruby looks on…
5. Finally, these 2 jokers.
Because as hard as last Friday was, Astrid was right there to comfort Sable and make sure she was okay.
Thankfully, our vet was understanding about herd bound fools and as long as she was out of the way, she could stay.
And Ruby has been *my* rock while Sable was sick.
When your normal leaning rock of a horse needs to lean on you for a while and you need to lean somewhere too, well it was nice Ol’ Painty Face stepped up and let me use her to brush out some stress and anxiety on…
Sharing with Brian’s Home for Thankful Thursday.
When I last left y’all an update, we were waiting to hear back from the vet on our next steps in Sable’s care.
We were at the end of an 8 day course of Excenel shots, the swelling in her TMJ was still there, and she still needed her teeth done.
Friday morning, I heard from the vet.
I explained where we were at with Sable, and with a little bit of discussion, it was decided to go ahead with floating her teeth.
That’s done under sedation, so he cold try to take x-rays of her big head at the same time, and, if need be scope her to see if there was anything to see that way.
So, at 9:00 Friday morning, it was decided he would come for 1:30 to do her teeth…
And from there I was anxious as all effing get out, because my biggest baby was sick and needed her doctor…
After some coffee, breakfast and some much-needed meditation, I went out to the pasture with The Kid, and we coated the Palomino Princess in bug juice. Gave her a bit of a back rub, cleaned between her teats, rubbed her ears…all stuff to level my anxiety out without making her anxious.
First thing he did when he arrived was poke and prod at the lump on her jaw. And decide that he was for sure doing x-rays…
So, after a shot of sedation, which left our poor big baby swaying on her feet, he and his tech worked on getting an angle where hopefully he could see something that might help us understand what was going on.
Next few pics are from my phone, so not the greatest shots.
Unfortunately, there was far too much going on for me to bring out Voldemort, so these had to do…
Drugged for x-rays…
After the x-rays, he decided he wanted to stick a needle into the lump and see if there was any fluid in it. He asked me for some clean water, to wash the spot on Sable face, and I dashed up to the house for some…
As I got back, he said “She’s developed a bit of a nose bleed…” as I looked at the blood running out of her nostrils.
My response?
“Oh fuck!”
For which I immediately and automatically apologized…
I don’t know why.
I swear like a sailor, really. And it was an automatic response to yet another unknown thing happening that I had no control over.
But, we all had a good laugh about it, so it was fine.
The nosebleed did mean he was going to scope her though, because it was wholly and completely unexpected, and we kinda needed to know if there was more going on in there that caused it.
Yay!!
CinderBella was getting a camera shoved up her nose!!
Okay, not shoved…guided.
But still, good thing that mare was drugged.
😂😂
So, needle in the lump produced a teeny bit of fluid (which was likely joint fluid) and some blood.
Scoping showed inflammation in her lymph nodes and nothing more nefarious than that. Thank Epona!
And then it was time for teeth…because those *still* needed doing…
Speculum halter went on so he could have a good look, and then he took it off her, because a. she was a bit panicky that she couldn’t move her mouth and b. it probably put a hella lot of pressure on her TMJ which was already hurting…
So, he teeth were done like this:
The Kid held her halter the whole time…
She was not a happy mare about this whole thing. Not even a little bit. But, he got her done without extra sedation and without too much of a struggle. Once more, thank you Epona!!
After all was said and done, and our Big Girl was dozing in happy happy land, he gave me antibiotic pills for her and anti-inflammatories as well.
8 days on both and we’ll reassess from there.
And, when he called my Saturday morning with x-ray results, it turns out she has extra bone growth on the TMJ, which is most likely what the lump is.
Uh, did I mention it’s really hard to get a good x-ray of a TMJ in the best conditions, let alone on a drugged and wobbly horse in a pasture??
But, it was worth doing for the small amount of extra knowledge we got from it.
drugged and snoring softly in my face… ❤
So, now it’s Sunday, and the big question is, how’s my biggest baby doing after a couple of days of previcox and more antibiotics?
Check her out…
She’d just gotten up from a lying down nap…first one I’ve seen her have in a while.
Hubby says he’s seen her laying down when he leaves in the morning though, so that’s good!
She heard me coming and decided to get up…
“Hey Mama…got an apple snax for me??”
Those ears…
That posture…
You’d never know she was sick!!
❤ ❤ ❤
“So? Treats?”
Yup, treats.
Because the easiest way to get the Palomino Princess to take her anti-inflammatory is in a flax/apple cookie.
I’m still working on a reliable way to get the antibiotic pills in…without an argument.
LOL!
That’s the key. 😉
And now, my friends, you know what I know about how our Sable is doing.
I’ve been working on writing this post now for a few days…
There seems to be so much going on, that I don’t know where to start, or how to put things into words.
And yet, its typical summer time things…
Weed/water the garden
Care for the animals
Cut, rake, bale hay
Clean the house
Make the meals
Clean the kitchen
Start again the next day…
I’m finding myself exhausted before the day even begins.
And I’m trying really hard *not* to whine about it.
Which is a huge part of why writing this post has sat and sat and sat…
I am very happy to share that the garden is on track to produce the best crop this year.
We should have a bumper crop of bush beans, if flowers are any indication.
There are crazy amounts of flowers on the zucchini…I’m so excited for a lot of zucchini. I think I’m probably the only person in the world who *hopes* for a huge zucchini crop.
I love it in everything. And now, I’ve found a pickle recipe that uses zucs instead of cukes! I so want to try that!
Daily watering has made a huge difference.
That’s something I struggle with, because we haven’t yet fixed the hose tap on the house, so we’re running a hose from the yard hydrant over by the garage.
That’s a couple hundred feet…and my hose is holy.
OMG
That sounds like a terrible country song!!
“Waterin’ ma garden
With a holy hose
I’m waterin’ more weeds
Than ma tomatoes”
😂😂😂😂😂😂
Point is…I need a new hose. Or a few to put together, that won’t water the weeds while I’m trying to water the food forest.
Oh and we had a heat wave the last week or so…
It was hotter than…well, it was hot.
We lost almost half of our meat chicks.
Talk about frustration.
These guys are supposed to be our winter food, but if I lose them early, it makes it so much harder to get enough put up to feed everyone through to next year.
I did contact the hatchery and had a good chat with the owner, who gave me some tips for next time.
Fingers crossed that all grow well for us now!
Sable is feeling much better!
Though I’ll tell you, she’s probably so sick of me by now.
I’m all over her ever day to make sure she’s feeling better.
I have been so worried about her…let me tell you, lose one and it breaks your confidence. Or, at least it did mine.
So, I’m trying not to be a pain in the Vet’s ass, while still trying to make sure that our Cinder-Bella is healthy.
Add into that my ridiculous anxiety about making phone calls…sweet merciful crap, now *that’s* a pain in the ass!
Like when we finished Sable’s shots, and we found she was losing skin in spots…I had to call and find out if this was a side effect of the drugs, or was this something else.
Then, we found the same thing going on with Ruby on her chest.
Turns out, it was reactions to horsefly bites.
Something I should have recognized, and been able to handle without a vet call, but I panicked.
Jeez, I’ve always prided myself on not being “that owner” who calls over every little thing…yet, here I am.
But, the good thing about the Girl’s skin…
I did a betadine scrub on them, to clean up the loose skin, coated them in SWAT (to protect from the damn bugs) and now everyone is good again.
All the hair has grown back in.
So I’m lighting daily smudges, as the wind allows.
That’s the only thing that’s effectively combating the stupid horse flies. That layer of smoke on the mare’s coats gives them a couple of hours protection after they leave the safety of the smudge smoke.
I did get a chance to photograph a lovely prairie sunset the other day:
See the mares at the bottom?
❤
So, y’know, I’m trying to focus on the beauty and splendor of country living, instead of whining all the time.
LOL
Sometimes though, it feels like all I’m doing is whining.
😉
Soon enough, harvest will happen.
*Then* I’ll whine, out loud, often and with gusto.
As we put chickens and pigs in the freezer, I pull out the pressure canner for veggies, and tomato products, and with a whole lotta Bambi Dancing luck, we get a deer or two to add to the freezer.
Then I’ll be whiney and tired, more than I am now, and I’ll be longing for the quite days of hay, weeding and watering.
Winter is coming.
