The swelling has reduced by one-third as of this morning - and when I attempted to get an even closer look, she walked away. As in, "that no longer requires your attention, please give me more hay."
If I ever go back to school to study anything formally, it will be homeopathy. Powerful and effective.
billie hinton’s camera-obscura:
life and lessons on November Hill Farm
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
tune of the cosmic dust
(title from an entry in Caitlin Matthews' The Celtic Spirit)
Human beings, vegetables, cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible player.
-Albert Einstein
(image courtesy of my husband)
This week the tune of the cosmic dust seems more apparent, as one thing happens and seems almost magically to link up to a next thing, in a sequence that fits perfectly but was not planned, nor could have been, by me.
Sunday I woke up to Salina's enlarged udder, and rolled through the day with that on my mind. Her quick response to the homeopathic remedy carried through to Monday, when talking with the vet, I was able to get validation and also offer some needed information to his office staff about bringing a horse down to the area to board.
Monday afternoon we arrived at my daughter's dressage lesson to find the trainer in the midst of many emergencies: the barn loft was literally falling, and being supported by steel support beams carried in by a construction team. A load of footing was being delivered into the arena, not at all on the schedule she had arranged. It was dumped in the wrong part of the arena and was the wrong kind of sand.
The Grand Prix schoolmistress horse my daughter rides was a pillar of grace. She stood quietly while being tacked up in a paddock, the sound of hay bales being dropped from the temporarily secured loft and landing on a metal trailer didn't bother her. The dump truck maneuvering didn't alarm her.
And when we walked out to the arena for the lesson, the trainer put on her ribboned hat and proceeded to teach, marking off a section of the arena where there were no mountains of orange sand blocking the way, so my daughter could ride.
I learned that there was more still going on: a family member diagnosed with a scary disease, three horses lame, a family pet in surgery.
Needless to say, I received a lesson on Monday, and it was seeing grace under pressure.
My husband announced the beach plans that evening, and wonderfully, a good friend and former writing partner was free on such short notice to come for an impromptu writing retreat this weekend. She told me when I emailed that she had been working on her book all day, and had been feeling the need to give it special time this week. And now we will pool our creative energies and move forward.
Tuesday we began preparing for the pizza/movie night tomorrow, when 11 pre/early teens will gather and plan some activities for their fall. They're all excited about meeting, and there was a last-minute rush of RSVPs that added to the excite.
I got in bed last night tired and realized my left breast was having an unusual sensation. (it's Salina's left udder that is swollen) It felt like something clearing. A pressure releasing. I breathed a sigh of relief. She is in no pain, nor would I let her be, and has no symptoms beyond the swelling. But of course I have been aware continuously that the swelling needs to reduce for things to be completely normal. I suspect I'll find today that that symptom too is resolving.
It's being one of those spans of time when I can almost see the bigger machination turning and spinning - where things fall into place and one thing sets up another.
It reminds me of my most favored Mark Helprin passage, from his novel The Winter's Tale:
Nothing is random, nor will anything ever be, whether a long string of perfectly blue days that begin and end in golden dimness, the most seemingly chaotic political acts, the rise of a great city, the crystalline structure of a gem that has never seen the light, the distributions of fortune, what time the milkman gets up, the position of the electron, or the occurrence of one astonishingly frigid winter after another. Even electrons, supposedly the paragons of unpredictability, are tame and obsequious little creatures that rush around at the speed of light, going precisely where they are supposed to go. They make faint whistling sounds that when apprehended in varying combinations are as pleasant as the wind flying through a forest, and they do exactly as they are told. Of this, one can be certain.
And yet, there is a wonderful anarchy, in that the milkman chooses when to arise, the rat picks the tunnel into which he will dive when the subway comes rushing down the track from Borough Hall, and the snowflake will fall as it will. How can this be? If nothing is random, and everything is predetermined, how can there be free will? The answer to that is simple. Nothing is predetermined; it is determined, or was determined, or will be determined. No matter, it all happened at once, in less than an instant, and time was invented because we cannot comprehend in one glance the enormous and detailed canvas that we have been given -- so we track it, in linear fashion, piece by piece. Time, however, can be easily overcome; not by chasing the light, but by standing back far enough to see it all at once. The universe is still and complete. Everything that ever was, is; everything that ever will be, is -- and so on, in all possible combinations. Though in perceiving it we imagine that it is in motion, and unfinished, it is quite finished and quite astonishingly beautiful. In the end, or rather, as things really are, any event, no matter how small, is intimately and sensibly tied to all others.
I propose that today we all stand back and breathe, take it all in, and celebrate the vista. That's my plan for the day.
Human beings, vegetables, cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible player.
-Albert Einstein
(image courtesy of my husband)This week the tune of the cosmic dust seems more apparent, as one thing happens and seems almost magically to link up to a next thing, in a sequence that fits perfectly but was not planned, nor could have been, by me.
Sunday I woke up to Salina's enlarged udder, and rolled through the day with that on my mind. Her quick response to the homeopathic remedy carried through to Monday, when talking with the vet, I was able to get validation and also offer some needed information to his office staff about bringing a horse down to the area to board.
Monday afternoon we arrived at my daughter's dressage lesson to find the trainer in the midst of many emergencies: the barn loft was literally falling, and being supported by steel support beams carried in by a construction team. A load of footing was being delivered into the arena, not at all on the schedule she had arranged. It was dumped in the wrong part of the arena and was the wrong kind of sand.
The Grand Prix schoolmistress horse my daughter rides was a pillar of grace. She stood quietly while being tacked up in a paddock, the sound of hay bales being dropped from the temporarily secured loft and landing on a metal trailer didn't bother her. The dump truck maneuvering didn't alarm her.
And when we walked out to the arena for the lesson, the trainer put on her ribboned hat and proceeded to teach, marking off a section of the arena where there were no mountains of orange sand blocking the way, so my daughter could ride.
I learned that there was more still going on: a family member diagnosed with a scary disease, three horses lame, a family pet in surgery.
Needless to say, I received a lesson on Monday, and it was seeing grace under pressure.
My husband announced the beach plans that evening, and wonderfully, a good friend and former writing partner was free on such short notice to come for an impromptu writing retreat this weekend. She told me when I emailed that she had been working on her book all day, and had been feeling the need to give it special time this week. And now we will pool our creative energies and move forward.
Tuesday we began preparing for the pizza/movie night tomorrow, when 11 pre/early teens will gather and plan some activities for their fall. They're all excited about meeting, and there was a last-minute rush of RSVPs that added to the excite.
I got in bed last night tired and realized my left breast was having an unusual sensation. (it's Salina's left udder that is swollen) It felt like something clearing. A pressure releasing. I breathed a sigh of relief. She is in no pain, nor would I let her be, and has no symptoms beyond the swelling. But of course I have been aware continuously that the swelling needs to reduce for things to be completely normal. I suspect I'll find today that that symptom too is resolving.
It's being one of those spans of time when I can almost see the bigger machination turning and spinning - where things fall into place and one thing sets up another.
It reminds me of my most favored Mark Helprin passage, from his novel The Winter's Tale:
Nothing is random, nor will anything ever be, whether a long string of perfectly blue days that begin and end in golden dimness, the most seemingly chaotic political acts, the rise of a great city, the crystalline structure of a gem that has never seen the light, the distributions of fortune, what time the milkman gets up, the position of the electron, or the occurrence of one astonishingly frigid winter after another. Even electrons, supposedly the paragons of unpredictability, are tame and obsequious little creatures that rush around at the speed of light, going precisely where they are supposed to go. They make faint whistling sounds that when apprehended in varying combinations are as pleasant as the wind flying through a forest, and they do exactly as they are told. Of this, one can be certain.
And yet, there is a wonderful anarchy, in that the milkman chooses when to arise, the rat picks the tunnel into which he will dive when the subway comes rushing down the track from Borough Hall, and the snowflake will fall as it will. How can this be? If nothing is random, and everything is predetermined, how can there be free will? The answer to that is simple. Nothing is predetermined; it is determined, or was determined, or will be determined. No matter, it all happened at once, in less than an instant, and time was invented because we cannot comprehend in one glance the enormous and detailed canvas that we have been given -- so we track it, in linear fashion, piece by piece. Time, however, can be easily overcome; not by chasing the light, but by standing back far enough to see it all at once. The universe is still and complete. Everything that ever was, is; everything that ever will be, is -- and so on, in all possible combinations. Though in perceiving it we imagine that it is in motion, and unfinished, it is quite finished and quite astonishingly beautiful. In the end, or rather, as things really are, any event, no matter how small, is intimately and sensibly tied to all others.
I propose that today we all stand back and breathe, take it all in, and celebrate the vista. That's my plan for the day.
Monday, August 18, 2008
clearing small obstacles (in a single bound)
I spoke with our homeopathic vet yesterday and he felt my treatment plan was on the money, so we're continuing the remedy and watching things closely with Salina. She seems to be slightly perplexed by the fact that I'm using a tiny syringe to spray sweet water into her mouth. A far cry from paste dewormer or Probios or Banamine.
Meanwhile, it turns out the rest of the family will be beach-bound this weekend, so the end of summer Get Ready To Query writing weekend will be taking place here this Friday-Sunday. I have one RSVP thus far and am eager to get moving with edits again.
Meanwhile, it turns out the rest of the family will be beach-bound this weekend, so the end of summer Get Ready To Query writing weekend will be taking place here this Friday-Sunday. I have one RSVP thus far and am eager to get moving with edits again.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
kick-start the week
I woke up yesterday to discover that Salina had a swollen udder and was off her feed, so I gave her a dose of Banamine, set her up in the barn aisle where she could have some hay, stand by Keil Bay's stall, or graze the barnyard, and she rested there with her trusty companion Rafer Johnson while we did barn chores.
Once the Banamine kicked in, she seemed a bit better, and I hosed the udder mainly to see if there was a wound there - nothing. She sighed and stretched her legs out though, so I think the hosing felt good.
I got out my books and came up with a homeopathic remedy to try. Within about 15 minutes she was alert and in her stall munching on hay. The swelling lessened a bit, and over the course of the day I monitored her to make sure she was eating (she lined up at the feed room door for lunch), drinking, and using the bathroom normally. Everything checked out well. The udder remained swollen so I decided to use a different remedy in the pm. She was back to her normal self in all ways, and I'll be keeping a chose check on that udder today and will put a call in to the vet as needed.
My daughter had ridden the pony in the morning, so she tacked up Cody and rode the Intro A dressage test with him in the evening. When I got Keil Bay in the arena and mounted, she talked me into riding the Intro A test on the Big Bay. This is what I wrote elsewhere about our ride:
I had done some warming up and Keil was forward and alert, but the moment we entered at A and trotted down center line, he was so in front of my leg and on the aids we basically overshot the entire test. Working trot became extended, the circles were me keeping him at a trot instead of canter, and he wanted to blast down center line at the end so that by the time we halted we were practically in the "judge's " lap!
It was a terrible test but I was laughing out loud through most of it. Imagine my delight at having this big powerful tank moving out with energy and excitement, instead of me trying to get the engine rolling!
I ended up *letting* him do the big giant trot work (this is when he looks the best, but normally we have to warm up and I have to push him into this gear) and then we hand-galloped some - he was so wanting to MOVE.
Keil is in week 4 of his herbal regime, and the results are astounding. It's like riding the "best of Keil Bay" all the time.
Heading into a new week with new things to learn - udders, getting a powerhouse to do a dressage test, hosting the first pre/early teen hs'ing movie night.
I'll leave you with two little videos my daughter made over the weekend to kick-start the week and get it rolling:
Once the Banamine kicked in, she seemed a bit better, and I hosed the udder mainly to see if there was a wound there - nothing. She sighed and stretched her legs out though, so I think the hosing felt good.
I got out my books and came up with a homeopathic remedy to try. Within about 15 minutes she was alert and in her stall munching on hay. The swelling lessened a bit, and over the course of the day I monitored her to make sure she was eating (she lined up at the feed room door for lunch), drinking, and using the bathroom normally. Everything checked out well. The udder remained swollen so I decided to use a different remedy in the pm. She was back to her normal self in all ways, and I'll be keeping a chose check on that udder today and will put a call in to the vet as needed.
My daughter had ridden the pony in the morning, so she tacked up Cody and rode the Intro A dressage test with him in the evening. When I got Keil Bay in the arena and mounted, she talked me into riding the Intro A test on the Big Bay. This is what I wrote elsewhere about our ride:
I had done some warming up and Keil was forward and alert, but the moment we entered at A and trotted down center line, he was so in front of my leg and on the aids we basically overshot the entire test. Working trot became extended, the circles were me keeping him at a trot instead of canter, and he wanted to blast down center line at the end so that by the time we halted we were practically in the "judge's " lap!
It was a terrible test but I was laughing out loud through most of it. Imagine my delight at having this big powerful tank moving out with energy and excitement, instead of me trying to get the engine rolling!
I ended up *letting* him do the big giant trot work (this is when he looks the best, but normally we have to warm up and I have to push him into this gear) and then we hand-galloped some - he was so wanting to MOVE.
Keil is in week 4 of his herbal regime, and the results are astounding. It's like riding the "best of Keil Bay" all the time.
Heading into a new week with new things to learn - udders, getting a powerhouse to do a dressage test, hosting the first pre/early teen hs'ing movie night.
I'll leave you with two little videos my daughter made over the weekend to kick-start the week and get it rolling:
Saturday, August 16, 2008
funny little habit since owning horses
Last night I went with my husband to pick out a new dryer. I knew walking in to the store that we weren't getting the lovely green Duet steam washer and dryer I have ogled in catalogs and on random trips to Lowe's. I love the way the Duets look up on their stands, and the soft green against our terra cotta tile would be such a nice contrast of color in the laundry room.
And yet, standing there last night, calculating just how much it would cost for the Duet pair, plus stands, I kept thinking in my head:
Wow, that amount of money would buy a year's supply of hay.
Or two years of Adequan.
A shopping spree at Horsetech.
Saliva tests and accompanying herbs for every living creature in my family.
It would cover a County dressage saddle for Cody.
Make a good dent in the expense of getting the sink in my tack room hooked up, and putting in the wide plank wood floor I want in there.
It would buy new arena footing, pea gravel for my "hoof stimulation areas," or the gate for the front of our property.
Ever since owning horses, I have this little habit of calculating everything in terms of farm improvements, horse care, and riding tack/attire.
The funny thing is that most anything I see and "want" for its aesthetic pleasure isn't, in the end, worth anywhere near the pleasure I get from living with the horses. It was kind of nice to be reminded of that last night. And when we got home, and my husband installed the modest dryer, I tossed the latest load of clean clothes into it and turned it on. When the buzzer sounded, they were dry. And that's the important thing.
And yet, standing there last night, calculating just how much it would cost for the Duet pair, plus stands, I kept thinking in my head:
Wow, that amount of money would buy a year's supply of hay.
Or two years of Adequan.
A shopping spree at Horsetech.
Saliva tests and accompanying herbs for every living creature in my family.
It would cover a County dressage saddle for Cody.
Make a good dent in the expense of getting the sink in my tack room hooked up, and putting in the wide plank wood floor I want in there.
It would buy new arena footing, pea gravel for my "hoof stimulation areas," or the gate for the front of our property.
Ever since owning horses, I have this little habit of calculating everything in terms of farm improvements, horse care, and riding tack/attire.
The funny thing is that most anything I see and "want" for its aesthetic pleasure isn't, in the end, worth anywhere near the pleasure I get from living with the horses. It was kind of nice to be reminded of that last night. And when we got home, and my husband installed the modest dryer, I tossed the latest load of clean clothes into it and turned it on. When the buzzer sounded, they were dry. And that's the important thing.
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