Saturday, September 24, 2016

End of the week catch-up

The week got away from me and although yesterday was blissfully free of anything scheduled, I never managed to sit down and write a blog post!

My big excitement for the day was finding the perfect lamp for my desk in the garret at the Habitat store for $17.50. I stopped by on a whim and there it was. For the past year I've become very sensitive to blue screen light and have to have lamplight of some kind close to the screen to temper it. I'd put a small lamp there but didn't like how it looked so was waiting to find the perfect one in the Habitat store. I've crossed that off my list now.

Otherwise, spent time mucking and noticing the change of season. Leaves are falling and horses and donkeys are crunching on acorns. I kept seeing them gathered under an oak tree and it took me a few minutes to realize they were waiting for acorns to fall so they could eat them! 

Cody's abscess is resolved and he's back on regular turn-out with the herd. 

Keil Bay is now having a pound of pellets added to his Timothy balance cube mix 3x/day. I have been fretting over him looking a tiny bit "gaunt" and kept pondering whether it was time to put him on Eleanor Kellon's complete senior diet, which Salina was on for years before she died. It's a beautiful, balanced meal for seniors but it's fairly labor intensive and I'm not convinced Keil needs it at this point. 

My feed store owner talked me down from the ledge last week and suggested a pellet that has most of the ingredients from the senior mix and is non-GMO and with no corn or soy. I developed a mild headache standing there contemplating trying it but then decided we'd try one bag and see how it went.

Keil loves it. He has put on a little weight, in the right places, and it's very subtle which is exactly what I hoped for. I've been feeling guilty for not doing the complete senior mix for him the way we did for Salina but honestly, he's never needed calories until now and I don't want to do anything that puts a LOT of weight on. For now this is working well.

Later today I'm getting a 90-minute massage as a barter for an office rug I didn't need and then I'm coming home to paint another screen. I'm close enough to finishing the front porch now that I ordered the milk paint for the cat tunnel and the wood guardian for the front steps to prep them for their milk paint and tung oil. And I'll put another coat of tung oil on the front door. Hopefully it covers the scratch marks made by a certain Corgi boy last weekend when I closed him out temporarily while my mom came up the garage steps! 

Which reminds me - we had a very fun sleepover weekend with my daughter, myself, and my mom. I feel lucky to have both of them in my life and look forward to the next one. 

Fall is here (and hopefully today's 91-degree high is the end of that for awhile!) and life is good.

2 comments:

Grey Horse Matters said...

Sorry to hear you had 91 degree temp. I hope that disappears and you get the cool Fall weather we're having. I love it. 63 today and going down tonight. Yeah!

Nice that your mom and daughter and you could all spend time together. Three generation of women for a sleepover sounds perfect and special.

Your lamp sounds nice and the projects are coming along nicely.

I don't think we've ever had acorns for the horses to eat that I can remember. Yours seem to enjoy them though. I'm sure Keil will put on weight with the new feed you're trying. It sounds like good stuff.

billie said...

A, the acorns are not the best thing for them - once they really start falling I try to scoop up as many as I can and throw them over the fence into the wood that was clear cut years back beside us. Fortunately between deer and squirrels the horses do have some competition and don't get all that many. It's fun to see them so interested but I stress about how many they're eating. But definitely a huge sign of fall. Salina loved them the most.