Wednesday, November 29, 2006, 03:15

One of *Those* Days. . .

After three hours of sleep following a meeting I covered for the newspaper (and the subsequent story that needed to be turned in first thing Tuesday morning), it was 'up and at 'em' again at 6:30 so I could get Snowflake fed and the dogs squared away and the horses fed with plenty of time to eat their hay before the hoof trimmer showed up at 9 a.m.

I bought a new halter for my old gelding the other day so I could put a halter on him that I didn't need to tie on the side. The old halter, with a clip to close the throat latch, has been operating with a broken clip for years.

Right.

When I tried to put the new halter on Kajun this morning, he didn't want a thing to do with it. The whites of his eyes showed, he was snorting in fear, and he was ready to bolt out of the barn, whether I was hanging onto him or not.

So I ended up putting the old halter on him and using some twine string to tie the side.

Isabelle, on the other hand, didn't care one way or other whether I put a halter on her.

The pasture and the areas close to the fence are really muddy now, and of course, by the time the hoof trimmer arrived, it was starting to sprinkle again.

We started out with Kajun, and I was really surprised that he stood pretty well to have his feet trimmed. He is still shook up and nervous over the gun deer season that just ended on Sunday. He is afraid of gunshots, and people walking around in blaze orange throws him for a loop, too.

When we got to Isabelle, that's when Kajun decided to turn goofy. He ran up and down the fence on his side of the pasture, and that, in turn, set Isabelle off. I went to get him a flake of hay, and that helped him calm down.

By this time, it was raining harder yet and even beginning to sleet a little bit.

The trimmer had gotten three of Isabelle's feet done when I heard some kind of machine coming down the road.

Oh, great. It was the town patrolman with the boom mower. And he decided to chew up some trees not a hundred feet from where we were trying to get Isabelle's feet done.

My little Isabelle was scared silly of the boom mower and all of the grinding, cracking, roaring and crashing noises it was making. The trimmer and I both almost ended up run over a bunch of times. There was just no way Isabelle was going to stand with all of that racket going on.

Finally I went out to the road and explained the situation to the patrolman who graciously agreed to take the boom mower elsewhere and to come back to our stretch of road later.

Isabelle was still fit to be tied.

And of course, it was still raining pretty hard.

In the meantime, Charlie was making a nuisance out of himself. He always likes to grab chunks of horse hoof to chew on. And sometimes he stands right underneath the horse. With Isabelle acting like she had lost her mnd, I was afraid Charlie would get trampled. Isabelle isn't really crazy about the dog anyway, and she probably wouldn't think twice about stomping all over Charlie. So, I tied Charlie to the fence with a piece of twine string. Which Charlie didn't care for. He began to yip and whine after a while, so I untied him and took him in the basement and put him in his kennel.

After quite a few go arounds, the trimmer convinced Isabelle she should stand. And much to my surprise, he just dropped the lead rope and finished that last foot without me holding onto her.

By the time the hoof trimmer left, I was soaked to the skin. Soaked to the skin with a cold rain that wanted to be sleet but thought it was just a touch warm outside to be sleet.

I changed my clothes as soon as I got in the house, but it didn't help much. I felt so chilled it seemed as if I would never, ever be warm again as long as I lived. I took care of a few odds and ends, and then I crawled into bed with a bunch of quilts over me and fell asleep. When I woke up, thank goodness the chill had left my bones.

It was at this point I realized Charlie was still in his kennel in the basement. I let him out and figured I ought to take him for a walk.

Right.

As we were walking, it started raining again. Well, actually, it didn't start raining until we were at the farthest point from the house. THEN it started it raining. By the time we got back, I was once again, for the second time today, soaked to the skin with a cold rain that wanted to be sleet.

I fed the horses and came inside to try to dry off and to get the chill out of my bones again. By this time, it was pretty much dark.

Today was one of those days that I will be glad when it is over!

LeAnn R. Ralph

Monday, November 27, 2006, 21:18

A Pleasant Surprise (Of Sorts)

I must say, I am pleasantly surprised that the weather forecast was somewhat right! We did, indeed, get a little rain Sunday night. Maybe a quarter of an inch. It was raining fairly steadily when I went outside with Pixie, although by the time I went outside to give the horses more hay, it was only sprinkling.

It rained just enough, of course, to turn the horse pastures -- or not necessarily the pastures -- but the places where Kajun and Isabelle like to stand -- into a quagmire.

Places in Minnesota got freezing rain, so I am glad we escaped the freezing part of it. A little rain is one thing, but I can do without roads that are covered with a layer of ice.

The forecast says we are supposed to get more rain tonight, so we shall see. Of course, it is still possible that the rest of the week will be cloudy, misty, foggy and damp without any real additional precipitation.

At this time of the year, though, it ought to be snowing, not raining. I was hoping that decorating the Christmas tree at church on Sunday night would help me find some of that Christmas spirit, but I am afraid it did not.

A group of us decorated the tree, and when we were finished, we broke into a spontaneous rendition of "Away in the Manger" (mostly for the benefit of the one little Sunday school girl who was there, because you know, we're hoping to at least make the attempt for a Christmas program).

Even "Away in the Manger" didn't help.

Randy and a friend of his went to cut the 12-foot tree Sunday morning after the service and then hauled it into the church. No one was any the worse for the experience, so that's a good thing.

One year I helped haul a 12-foot tree into the church, and let me tell you, it is quite a job. That particular tree was covered with snow, too, and snow makes it an even harder job. At least the tree this year didn't have any snow on it, and the tree itself was not frozen. When they're frozen, you always have to worry about snapping off branches.

Beep-Beep-Beep -- I'm being serenaded by "beep beep beep" today. The township has got the grader out, and the patrolman has been driving back and forth past my house. I am hoping that means he is working on grading out the *ridges* that have popped up in the road. If so, I will have smoother driving for a day or two until the ridges come back. None of the kitties want to be outside today, so I'm thinking that maybe they are afraid of all the noise from the grader. Don't blame them, actually. They went outside for a little while, but then they wanted to come right back in.

Snowflake -- Little Snowflake has passed a few more milestones over the last several days. She has spent more time "out and about" -- and more time stashed in the bathroom. She is reasonably content in the bathroom, I think, as long as I am not in the house. If I am in the house, she wants to come out. And she knows where the door is, too! How do they learn these things so quickly?

She has started to explore the house a little bit more, too. She followed me out into the kitchen this morning while I was warming up her formula and then proceeded to sit on my foot while she waited.

Sunday afternoon I was sitting in the chair by the table where I feed her, trying to call her over to me. She turned, saw a pair of my boots sitting by the clothes dryer and climbed up on my boots. As far as Snowflake is concerned, it would appear, boots must mean that Mom is not far away. There was only one problem. I wasn't wearing those boots at the time. I thought that was pretty good, though. She knows Mom wears boots.

LeAnn R. Ralph