Monday, October 03, 2005, 18:55
Something is Missing. . .
This morning as I walked back up the lane after putting out some in the pasture for Isabelle, I noticed that Isabelle looked different. She was standing by the fence, nose in her feed tub, eating her grain, and something was different about her. But what?
She was still the same black horse with a white "T" on her face -- and yet, something was not quite right.
I looked at her for a few seconds. Then it dawned on me. Her halter was gone!
We have not taken the halter off Isabelle since she arrived here on August 22 for fear that we would not get the halter back on her again. Someone, somewhere along the line, has given her a very hard time about getting a bridle on, so consequently, she isn't crazy about anything going over her ears.
"Where's your halter, Isabelle?" I said.
I looked around, and there, laying by her feed tub, was the blue nylon halter she was wearing where arrived here. I picked it up and noticed that the snap had gotten cockeyed and then unclipped. I suppose she rubbed her head on a fence post until the halter slipped off.
"Great," I said. "Now I've got to try to get this back on you."
I finished carrying water for both Isabelle and Kajun. Then I sprayed Kajun with some flyspray. It is hot and humid today. Dewpoint of around 70 degrees and a temperature of 80. The flies are coming out to enjoy the warm, humid weather.
I carried the flyspray and the halter down in the pasture to where Isabelle was eating her hay.
"I hope I can get it back on you again," I said.
I held the halter up to her face, and much to my surprise, in one quick movement, I had gotten it over her ears.
Isabelle just stood there, chewing on her mouthful of hay.
"Good girl, Isabelle!" I said. "Good girl!"
Because of Isabelle's fear of the bridle and the bit, we have had to come up with a different idea. We bought a nylon bridle, took it apart, put "quick connect snaps" on the headstall and the reins, and then we assemble the bridle around her head. This seems to be working quite well. She is not crazy about taking the bit, but she doesn't mind the headstall, and once I get the headstall on her, then I work on getting the bit in her mouth. It is a simple matter of reversing the process when I take the bridle off. She doesn't get upset. I don't get upset. And it all works out fairly well.
We are now working on getting Isabelle used to the bridle. We have ridden her a little bit with the bridle (about 5 minutes for each of us a couple of times). But still, she's a young horse with lots of growing, so I don't want to stress her too much this fall.
As for Isabelle's halter, I suppose now that she knows she can get it off, I might be spending a lot more time putting it back on her.
Juliette -- My little black kitty cat, one of the cats I raised from newborns last year, is sick. She came in the house Friday night with a bad case of diarrhea. We ended up making an emergency trip to the vet clinic Friday night. She had a very high fever, so the vet gave her some oral antibiotic. As soon as we got home, she threw up the antibiotic. So, I called him back. He said to wait a while and then give her some of the antibiotic he had sent home. She promptly threw that up, too. Saturday morning, Randy took her back to the vet where she got a shot of Amoxicillan and some subcutaneous fluid. I have spent the weekend giving her shots of Amoxicillan and running subcutaneous fluid. She is feeling a little better but still is not eating, so I've had to try to get some Nutracal into her, too. She was feeling frisky enough last night that we were unable to administer the subcutaneous fluid. She kept trying to jerk away and was twisting and turning, in spite of my grip on the scruff of her neck, and I didn't want to seriously injure her with the needle.
This morning, however, I noticed that Juliette was getting dehydrated again. It's difficult for me to hold the cat, hold the IV bag, operate the tubing, and get the needle into her all at the same time. So, I dug around and found a big syringe and was able to get 25 cc of fluid in that way. She's supposed to have 60 to 100 cc twice per day, but I figure 25 is better than nothing until Randy comes home so I've got some help. She didn't seem to mind the syringe as much as the IV tubing. Maybe I'll try more of that later.
WHAT IS GOING ON? This is the third sick kitty cat I've had in the last couple of months. I'm thinking that the hot, dry weather this year might be making them more susceptible to illness. All except for Nightshade. She was sick because she had injured herself somehow, couldn't get around and didn't want to eat. She's doing much better now, thank goodness.
Air Conditioning? Air conditioning? In October? In Wisconsin? Yes, indeed, I had to turn the air conditioners on again last night.When I took Pixie outside before going to bed, it was 70 degrees. And it felt hot and sticky in the house. So, I turned on the AC to help take the humidity out of the air and to filter out some of the pollen. The weather forecast says that by Wednesday, we will have highs in the 40s and a cold rain, to boot. This evening, we're going to try turning Isabelle and Kajun in together to see what happens. If we're going to have a cold rain on Wednesday, I want her to have the opportunity to go in the barn, if she wants to, to get out of the rain. She spent her first night here in the barn, and I could tell she'd never been in a barn before. I hope everything goes all right. We'll turn them together for a few hours, then I'll put Isabelle back in her pasture overnight. I don't want them to start fighting when it's dark and we can't see what's going on. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they get along well enough to stand in the barn together so they can both be in out of the wind and the rain.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Monday, October 03, 2005, 03:44
Getting Ready for Winter
The other day, someone posed the question "What are you doing to get ready for winter?" on a discussion board that I was reading.
I've been thinking about it off and on since then, although it's been a little difficult because the temperature was in the 80s both Saturday and Sunday.
Getting ready for winter, I have realized, turns out to be a gradual process and not something that I do all at once.
1. Hay -- after we've had a hard freeze, I will cut off the rest of the garden mum (I've started cutting flowers from it; some of them went to church for altar arrangements on Sunday). I will also cut off my rose bush. Then I will cover them with hay. And I will keep my fingers crossed that this year, the barn kitties will not think the hay over the rose bush makes a nice, warm cave where they can wait for me to come out of the house and bring them more kitty food. Last winter, the barn kitties tunneled into the hay, and they almost killed my rose bush because the hole they made let in enough cold air to nearly finish it off. The rose bush has been growing and blooming by the basement wall for 9 years now.
2. Potted Plants -- when the air temperature is getting close to freezing for the daily high, I will bring my potted plants inside the basement. Geraniums. A mum. Some spider plants. An ivy. I have yet to find a good place to keep that ivy. I got a slip from my sister, who got a slip from her son-in-law, who took it out of a boutonniere he wore at a wedding. My sister said it was easy to grow. It might grow easy for her. It doesn't seem to like me. Or maybe it just doesn't like the kind of light I have to offer it.
3. Cover the garage door -- at some point, when it is below freezing during the day, I will cover the garage door with blankets. A few years back, we put in a new garage door. The old door was very heavy, and the new one is much lighter, except that while it looks very nice, it doesn't insulate nearly as well as the old garage door. It's one of those situations where you solve one problem and then create a new one.
4. Snow Shovels -- locating my snow shovels is an easy one. They're hanging in the basement. And after we've gotten enough snow to shovel, I will put one outside the basement door and one outside the back door so I can shovel my way out of the house. (Seems like I just put them away a little while ago, and now I'm thinking about getting them out again?)
5. Boots -- At first I will only need to find my light winter boots. Later on, when it's much colder and we've got quite a bit of snow, I will have to haul out my heavy insulated winter boots. Then I can spend the rest of the winter wondering why I'm tired after doing my chores and shoveling snow and taking the dogs for a walk, only to realize that I've been dragging around about five more pounds on each foot, so of *course* I'm tired.
6. Windows -- I will have to wash the windows inside and out. After a summer of dust and spits of rain and pollen blowing around, they really need washing. I do not want to spend the winter, cooped up in the house, staring at dirty windows. Although, later on when it's below zero, I won't have to worry about dirty windows. They will be covered with frost and I won't be able to see out of them, anyway. Along with washing the windows, we will take out the window air conditioners. Our windows are an odd size, with panes that slide back and forth rather than up and down, and it took us quite a few years to figure out *how* to install window air conditioners to keep the house cool, but also to keep the pollen outside. We solved the problem by installing plexiglass above the air conditioners to to fill up the rest of the window space.
7. Winter clothes -- I am hoping that before I actually need them, I will get around to washing my winter coats and winter sweaters. I always think I'm going to do that before it gets cold, but what usually happens is that I don't do it until I really need them. Freezing temperatures is a good incentive to wash my coats and sweaters so I can wear them.
8. Carrots -- before the snow flies, I will have to dig my carrots, scrub them off, peel them, boil them for a few minutes and freeze them. I like to wait until the carrot tops have frozen a little bit because the carrots are sweeter than if I dig them now. Along with digging the carrots, I will probably pull out any plants that are left in the garden. By then, they'll be dead, anyway.
And I think that's about it for what I will do to get ready for winter. I would rather not think about winter, but it will come whether I want to think about it or not. That's okay, though, because after winter comes spring -- and then the cycle can begin all over again.
LeAnn R. Ralph