A few farm photos

 My husband took this one the other morning and I love the foggy landscape, the redbud leaves now yellow, and a certain Bear Corgi showing off his home.

This is one large cluster of asters in the pollinator bed. There are two other large clusters as well, and I can tell you that if you want to support bees, whether honey bees, native bees or all of the above, this is a must-have for autumn forage. It’s covered on these sunny fall days.

Here’s one of our girls foraging, with already full pollen baskets!

I also noticed and took a photo today (but it isn’t loading on my ipad via icloud and I don’t have phone with me at the moment) of my climbing asters newly planted this summer. They kept getting nibbled back by bunnies until we fenced them off, and then they leafed out nicely. They now have buds soon to open! I’ll take a photo of the blooms when they open up. I’m happy they’re finally kicking off to a good start.

Clementina Pumpkin

 Every day I get photos like this in our fam chat and all I can think is - Clem needs her own calendar. :)

Spotlight on Clem and Baloo, again

 My daughter keeps taking stunning portraits of our dogs. Hello, Baloo:

And hello, Clementine and Baloo, best friends:

What’s Coming Up In The Garden, 61: blue vervain

 

This little plant seems small and ground-hovering, but will grow tall and spiky next spring/summer. It will be lovely wafting next to the fuchsia bluebird box, I think! Imagine the color combination of purple + fuchsia + the blue and cinnamon of bluebirds! 

More info:

Blue Vervain can offer a strong upright accent to any perennial garden or prairie/savanna.  The small, tubular, blue-violet flowers bloom from the bottom up in July's heat.  The numerous crowning spikes of blossoms give a candelabra-like appearance to this graceful plant.

Livestock will not eat Verbena so it may be thought of as "weedy" by some who observe it in a pasture setting. In a natural prairie it is not aggressive.  In fact, it is a rather short-lived perennial that will not compete well with more aggressive vegetation.  It self-seeds readily and is very easy to germinate, so it is a common component of many drier prairie seed mixes.  The seeds are a staple for many small mammals and birds that depend on this widely-distributed plant.

As the alternative name Swamp Verbena suggests, this Vervain likes wet, even soggy, conditions but also will grow in medium soils.  Full sun to partial sun are its preferred sun conditions. 

Second update on the Big Bay

 The Marquis prescribed for his EPM is on allocation and shipping was delayed, so we started him on a different EPM med called Re-Balance last week. On day three of that, symptoms worsened slightly, but by day four he was back to his improved self. The Marquis arrived yesterday just in time to give his daily dose, so we’ve switched him to the Marquis for 28 days and will finish off the Re-Balance at the end of that, assuming things look good.

Being the generally cooperative guy he is, I usually don’t have to halter Keil to give meds, so he took the Marquis easily, but then didn’t want to stand still for some needed fly spray (we got close to 80 yesterday and the gnats were back in full force!). My husband got his halter and Keil Bay cantered from a standstill around the entire barn and into the other end of the barn aisle, looking quite stable and fit. So I’m feeling relieved about how this is going so far.

I’m tapering him off the Bute now and he’ll go on Duralactin to keep a non-prescription, milder anti-inflammatory on board through the EPM treatment. 

Today he’s starting APF (an adaptogen) in advance of tapering slowly onto Prascend to treat the PPID/Cushings. After consulting with my homeopathic vet, he’ll stay on his two remedies and I’m going to use the Prascend to see if there is improvement overall while also pulling bloodwork each 4-6 weeks to track his ACTH level. We’re in the seasonal rise still so I want to have a snapshot of how his ACTH tracks coming out of it. We should have one more look at it before the Prascend kicks in, and then see where it goes from there. 

ECIRhorse.org has a database of great information about managing horses dealing with this disease, which is quite common in older horses and if left untreated can cause severe symptoms in some. 

Overall, Keil Bay is looking good and while I’m keeping a close eye on him, he seems to be his usual self right now. He has hoof trim tomorrow and chiro on Saturday so those two things will offer some more clues to how he’s doing, and he’ll get another acupuncture treatment next week.