taking a quiet moment

Yesterday, after a year-long illness spent at home under the care of my mother and an absolutely amazing team from Hospice, my father passed away. He was in his own bed, in his own room, surrounded by his wife, children, brother, and the Hospice Chaplain.

Even though we had been saying goodbye to him for most of this past year, yesterday was harder than any of us expected. His death was peaceful, he was not in pain, and he knew we were there. But he, like his father before him, really did not want to go, and he had to find his peace with that as he left us.

We reassured him that it was okay to go, that he would be met by a pack of dogs: his boyhood dog Shadow, who waited for him to come home from school every day and then amazingly knew the day he came home from the Korean War and was waiting by the train track when he crossed it, Pongo our Dalmatian, Pepper the poodle who found us and stayed, Tika the Siberian Husky, Oliver the smart-as-a-whip pound puppy, and Buddy the white German Shepherd. My brother reminded him that he would see his father and mother, and more friends and family members who preceded him in death. He seemed to ease at the thought.

Sometime I might try to write down some of the many memories I have. We sat in the room after he left us yesterday, telling stories of our memories of him, breaking down in fits and starts as we needed to, and finding comfort in the haven of our parents' home.

His entire Hospice team was there, making sure things were taken care of so that we could do what we needed to as a family, and in a wonderful moment of serendipity, when the cremation service came to get his body, his Hospice social worker saw I needed some distraction, and asked me about horses.

She let me ramble on for ten minutes and then suddenly I saw her name tag, made a connection, and realized she had married into the horse family who owned the stable where I learned to ride, bought my first horse, and years later, taught both my children to ride.

Amazingly, she knew all the school horses I had ridden, and knew my horse's dam very well. She knew the ponies my children learned to ride on. And she had married the one member of their family who facilitated, so many years ago, the most wonderful of all my riding memories - cantering around a small lake on a trail that we often rode, feeling as free as the wind, as though I had shifted into some other dimension of water and forest and horses.

As my father's body left his home, I was back on that magical ride, and hope that in some way his spirit was having the same feeling of freedom and magic in the ethers.

I was incredibly touched by the sharing of hugs and "I love you's" that passed between my mother and this team of women who have spent the past year supporting her, taking care of my father, and whose job it is to guide families through the death process.

I can't offer enough praise or enough thanks for these women. They do their job so well.

For now, I'm taking some time off from blogging, as I think I need to open up some time to process other things, to enjoy the spring weather on the backs of Keil Bay and Cody, to work on my books, and to spend some time with my mom, who has given up so much of her own freedom over the past year to make sure my dad was comfortable and safe and as happy as he could be.

When I left November Hill yesterday morning to go to my parents' house, knowing it would be a day we had all on some level been waiting for, I encountered a large snapping turtle stranded in the middle of the main road. He was muddy and I couldn't tell if he'd been hit, but there was a fair amount of traffic, including big rigs going too fast for anyone's good. I couldn't stop, but I called home and told my husband where the turtle was. When I hung up I started crying, feeling terrible for the turtle, feeling like it was some sort of sign but too complex for me to sort out in the moment.

My husband called back minutes later to assure me he had gone to rescue the turtle, who had NOT been hit, and had moved the turtle to safety in the woods on the other side of the road. In some odd way the turtle's rescue became a comfort for me all through the day and evening.

Until I get back to blogging, enjoy the spring, live well, and travel safely.

the celebration continues

Yesterday morning, with another threat of rain, I decided to again let the herd get their transition to green grass time earlier in the day instead of later. As you can imagine there was no grumbling about this change of routine.

They entered the front field in the order they finished their breakfast tubs, so the donkeys went in first, then Cody, and then Salina. When I let Keil Bay out he immediately became very possessive of the green, and went after the lovely black mare as though he were really going to be able to make her stop eating.

She kicked up both heels at him, flinging clods of dirt in his face, but even that didn't stop him. He flagged her again with his ears back, and Salina, 26 years old in March, stepped up into a lovely canter, kicked up her heels at him one more time, and proceeded to canter a big circle in the upper field, and in the process JUMPING a feed tub I had taken out there for the horses to lick clean!

Even with her arthritic knees, I have seen Salina do an extended trot that would probably get a score of 10 in a dressage test, pivot on a dime in both directions, do beautiful flying changes, and gallop as fast as the younger men in our herd, but until yesterday I have never seen her jump.

I went back into the barn to put on the pony's grazing muzzle, marveling that nothing could top the jumping mare, but when the pony came trotting out of the barn doing his own 10 trot, wearing his muzzle with what almost seemed like pride, I knew we were having a second day of pure celebration here.

It's pure pleasure seeing horses and donkeys so happy and exuberant. A spring tonic for sure.

the best celebration of spring I've seen so far

This morning I decided that after breakfast the horses and donkeys would get their hour in the front field, since it's cloudy, threatening to rain, and the temperature remained pretty steady overnight, so presumably the sugars in the new grass weren't spiking.

My son went out to the end of the paddock to open the gate to the front field, and Cody had already gone out. When I let Keil Bay out of his stall, he stopped to check out Cody's empty feed tub, then looked out and realized the front field was OPEN!

You could see the expression on his face: wow! not only did I get my yummy breakfast I now get to go out to that amazing grass! It was clear this was a top-notch morning in the Big Bay's opinion.

I wish I had a video - he sprang into a lively canter down the paddock, slowed to a very suspension-filled trot at the gate to make sure he didn't bowl over my son, and then revved back into the canter as he passed through.

He did a big canter circle, kicked up his heels, and then came to a dead halt, head down to graze before the blink of an eye.

Keil Bay turns 20 this month, and you'd never know it seeing his enthusiasm for life.

signs of spring

Now that the sun is back, and we're not inundated with rain, it's easy to see the signs of spring.

Dandelion flowers, the yellow primrose blooming by the front porch, the dogwoods and redbuds, and the big tulip poplar bursting forth, which usually means pollen is soon to come.

The carpenter bees are doing their kamikaze flight patterns around the barn, the fire ants have put up a few new mounds, and butterflies are beginning to appear. In the past two days I've seen a number of black ones, and one especially lovely one - white with golden tipped wings.

Keil Bay got this year's First Tick Award.

The main color when you look outside is GREEN, and that has prompted a true, sure sign of spring on a horse farm. Thoughts of ESCAPE.

Redford has suddenly decided the grass is greener on the other side of the grass paddock fence, and has climbed through 3 times in the past 3 days. He comes back when Salina and Rafer Johnson get a very specific number of feet away from him, but we've moved Cody to the grass paddock side of the barn until we can make some adjustments.

Horse hair is everywhere. Brushes become inoperable after a few swipes, because the bristles are so coated with horse hair.

And yesterday, in what seems to be my annual succumbing to spring fever, I decided on the spur of a very windy moment to offer the first taste of the front field to the herd.

Salina and the donkey boys had first dibs. 30 minutes of GREEN grazing! The donkey boys went all the way down, as they seemed to know this was a time-limited event, and the further down they were, the longer it would take me to get them back in again. Even removing Salina did not bring them up the hill. And when we went down to get them, they RAN! Bucking and kicking up their little donkey heels.

The geldings were up at the fence, annoyed that they were not being given a turn. But then the magic gate opened, and Keil Bay, authority on how to get the most green possible, went all the way down just as the donkeys had.

The poor, poor pony - it was his turn for a ride, so he was allowed some time with the round bale but didn't get the green stuff. Unfortunately he will have to have the muzzle on when he goes out there, so it's a mixed blessing for him.

By the end of April they'll be ready to move to night-time turn-out, and will be acclimated to the green. For now they're transitioning, one of my favorite times of the year because they are so clearly ready for the fresh forage.

And while spring brings a lot of things we have to protect the horses against, namely flies, ticks, fire ants, etc., I think we're ALL ready for the sunshine, the warmth, and the next season in the cycle of the year.

whirlwindy end to the week

A few hours away yesterday a number of tornadoes touched down and did some damage, and the local news is reporting the possibility of severe thunderstorms this evening with high winds and hail. It's been really warm here at night, and as a colder front moves in this afternoon, there's going to be about a 20-degree drop in temperature and ripe conditions for more yucky weather.

We were lucky yesterday not to have the whirling wind close by, but we did have a bit of a scare last night. When my husband went out to feed dinner at the barn, Salina went into the stall where she normally eats and proceeded to lie down. She didn't try to roll, but laid out flat and then got up. She was pawing a bit, and he took her dinner in, and she laid down again and then got back up. She ate about half of her tub and then stopped eating.

He came in to get me, and we went out together to decide what to do. Her gums were pink, she wasn't sweating, she wasn't agitated, but she did continue pawing and seemed like she might want to lie down again. Her respiration seemed normal, she had gut sounds, and when we tried to take her temperature, she pushed the thermometer out and swished her tail. Her normal reaction to that intrusion.

I suggested walking her in the arena, where it wasn't so mucky, to see if she settled or worsened. She walked normally, a nice big walk, and did her characteristic nicker upon halting. She dropped a very normal pile of manure very quickly, and we decided to give a dose of Banamine and check her in a couple of hours.

We put Cody and the pony on the opposite side of the barn, so that Salina could share the other side's three open stalls with Keil Bay, and be free to walk about in the less mucky dirt paddock on that side. Initially I tried to keep the donkeys in the barn aisle, but she and they were miserable being separated, so we let them join her.

At 1 a.m. she was calm and relaxed, hadn't gone down again, and had dropped more normal manure. She wasn't eating but I figured her system was doing what it needed, and we came in and went to bed.

In the midst of all this I kept hearing a very high-pitched squeaking sound that seemed to be coming from the walls of the barn itself. I kept walking around listening, stopping, waiting for it to resume, asking if anyone else heard it, etc. Bats? Baby birds? Some kind of tree frog? Some kind of insect? Or tons of baby mice who had all just been born?

When I got to the back deck of the house, I heard it again. Then when I got inside the laundry room it was even louder. It was one of those moments when logic escaped me - I thought, oh my gosh, we must be infested with mice and they've all given birth at the same time, everywhere!

And then I realized - it was my right muck boot! I have no idea how or why it was making the noise, but every time I stepped a certain way, or shifted my weight onto that side, there was the noise.

We got a good (and much needed by that time) laugh out of that.

I got in bed and did my usual meditation of surrounding the horses with white light. I also told Salina that we would take care of her, but if it was time for her to go, that was fine too. At her advanced age, with her arthritic knees and all she's been through with the loss of her eye, I've decided that we wouldn't send her to the vet school or an equine clinic for surgery or treatment should the need arise. The stress of travel, of separating from her donkey boys, would be huge, and given her personality and intensity, I don't think it would be in her best interest at this point in her life. So I reminded myself that if things worsened, I already had the lines drawn for myself and wouldn't need to struggle with that kind of decision.

It's a difficult thing to think about, but a sense of relief knowing I've already made the decision, at least for Salina.

I had a very bizarre dream, in which Salina did go to the vet school, but the donkeys accompanied her, and it was determined that she'd eaten the ear off a stuffed animal and it had lodged in her digestive track somewhere. They recommended exploratory surgery to find and remove it. I had to say very clearly to the vet staff that we would not do that, and it almost felt in the dream like a "practice run" for me - to walk through a possible scenario and carry out what I've decided theoretically.

The dream then shifted to a very bizarre symbolic representation of some other stuff going on in my life, so literal it was almost laughable when I woke up and recounted it. It never ceases to amaze me how the psyche offers us what we need using the images we need, and are ready for, in order to "get the message."

This morning, Salina was eager to go to the field with her herd, and proceeded to graze on grass and hay immediately. She came in for breakfast at her appointed time, nickered as usual, and got highly ticked off when she found out I had only served her the beet pulp plus salt and mineral portion of her meal. I added some chopped apples, and she did eat some of it, but harassed Keil Bay in the stall next door, wanting some of his meal.

She ate a bit of the donkeys' timothy cube mix, more of her meal, and then proceeded to set in to eating more hay. She dropped more very normal manure, and although we're continuing to watch her and monitor things, I hope this crisis has passed.

With all the potential for severe weather, I'm also sending out some calming thoughts, in hopes that we all get through the weekend safely and easily.