Picking Daisies

 

(Photo courtesy of my dear daughter)

Moving On

 Yesterday went well for the Big Handsome Bay so last night I decided to let him turn out with his herd for the first time since last Sunday. We did not put any hay out but let them all graze, as he’s been getting grazing time all week and doing well with it. 

He was happy this morning but also hungry, and dear husband said he took a lead rope off its hook from instead his stall and tossed it into the barn aisle while waiting for his morning tub. 

When I went out to feed breakfast tubs to him and to everyone else, he took his halter off its hook and spun it around and around in the air building momentum and then let it fly. I’ve seen him do this before but it’s been awhile! I tried to get some video footage of him but he decided once was enough, I guess. 

I’m not sure the video has loaded properly, but I gave it a shot!

Trying to move on but also still monitoring his intake and output, and of course stressing any time frame without manure, which is not altogether reasonable. 

He’s happy for now and we’ll see how things go. 

Need Jingles For Keil Bay

Hopefully a final update: 

This morning Keil Bay had dropped four good manure piles in the arena where he spent the night, with his herd wrapped around him in the paddock and back pasture. He is in good spirits and has had very good heart rate and gut sounds while eating and drinking and pooping and peeing. The signs of a healthy, functioning system. 

We’re continuing his simple, small, very wet meals through this evening, and will gradually dial back the soupiness level toward what we normally feed him, which is wet but not soupy. I’m putting just one hanging water bucket with plain water in his stall today so I can insure he is back to drinking normally from that, and we’ll continue monitoring heart rate and gut sounds and gum color. He’s also getting short grazing sessions, but no hay yet. 

I’m not sure what caused this - the vet thinks something caused him to stop drinking water - could be as simple as a change in weather, a tooth that hurt, some small thing - so now the impaction has cleared, we just need to do some detective work to make sure he is taking in water the way he normally does moving forward. 

******

24 hours after the previous update below, the Big Bay has dropped many piles of manure since last night’s first pile. We have monitored him like hawks all day, and celebrated every new pile. By mid-day today, he was whinnying for food, and by the late afternoon banging on his stall door. Around 6 p.m. he had been drinking water and dropped a huge manure pile and the vet approved the reintroduction of small soupy meals of timothy balance cubes soaked to the point of being soupy mush. He’ll spend another night in the arena but tonight he’ll have a tub of soup with him. Small and frequent wet meals for another 24 hours. Unless he knocks the barn down first. So grateful for his coming through this. 

******

 UPDATE: It’s 10:48 p.m. and when I went out to check on the Big Bay, I found a single horse apple in the middle of the arena. Then kept looking found a small pile of 12 more! Wet and shiny. Possibly TMI for the average person but my horse folk will get it and rejoice. :))) He needs to do this three more times, but it’s the best news of the day! Before I came in earlier this evening I walked over to the A marker behind which Salina is buried and I talked to her and asked her to watch out for Keil Bay tonight. It wouldn’t surprise me if she did her boss mare thing from beyond and got things moving for him. 

******

This morning he wasn’t interested in food at all and seemed off - thankfully our vet was able to come almost immediately. He has an impaction colic - no manure today yet and he’s not drinking. Vet has administered nasogastric fluids around noon today and again around 7 p.m. He’s had pain med injection x2 and honestly doesn’t seem to be in pain. Still very interested in peppermints (I made peppermint water, Aqua Aid water, plain water, water with ice cubes, and water from hose, water in different buckets, water in troughs. He’ll lick my hands and lap up some but what we need now is manure to drop and him to start drinking so he doesn’t have to be tubed. Yes, he can smell the peppermint I have in my pocket and has been rooting for it. 

For tonight vet has approved him being in the arena with his herd in the paddock and pasture adjacent so they can be close but we can tell if he drops any manure through the night. Dear husband is on his way home with a stethoscope so we can monitor heart rate, which vet says is a very good way to monitor how things are going for him, along with checking color of his gums.  

His massage therapist has given me some techniques to try and when I do it he yawns repeatedly, closes his eyes, and then goes and lifts his tail - so far nothing has come out but he’s trying! I’m also using a homeopathic remedy that might help. 

His heart rate is good and not increasing and he has just a few gut sounds on one side only (good that there are any at all but we want more!). 

He is interested in food which vet feels is a good sign. But we just do not know how things will go tonight and tomorrow. At his age (34) we won’t be sending him to the vet school. Thankfully our vet lives 15 minutes from us and he is amazing, so Keil Bay is in good hands through this. I hope for the very best outcome for him, but we do know he’s had a long and very good life, and while it will break my heart if this doesn’t resolve, he has been and will remain The King. Best horse ever in my life, dream horse, heart horse, and a joy to all of us. 

Send some jingles his way and I’ll update when I can. 

This is him a few minutes ago:

Good time to repost this: What Happened When I Stopped Trying To Do Everything

 Oldie but goodie post from 2017. We had to take a break for 9 months this year from our farm and house help, but recently restarted it for a day every other week. We’ve had two days now of the same amazing people coming in and helping. We pay a very good wage, what they more than deserve, and we get relief from some of the things we find it hard to get done. Win/win. I’m so grateful. I bolded the paragraph that I need to clearly remember! 

What happened when I stopped trying to do Everything

A few months ago my husband and I decided to hire someone to come once every other week to help us get the fenceline on two sides of the farm clear for the fencing that will be done in November. Through a serendipitous referral we found the exact right person to do this job, and quickly realized that a number of my projects could be expedited with his help. He started coming one day a week and then two days a week.

What happened next?

The nightmare of honeysuckle, wild muscadine, and trumpet vine living under our front porch was dug out and cleared out of the beds around the porch.

The beds were cleared and prepped for planting.

The farm was weedeated on a regular basis.

The mowing was done.

The fenceline, a total thicket of poison ivy and other invasive things, was cleared.

The pastures were cleared of fallen sticks and weed patches.

The very back wooded area is about 2/3 clear now, with stacks of firewood and kindling waiting for the woodstove if it ever gets cold this year.

A month ago we decided to have someone come help me with cleaning inside the house once every other week.

Every room but the master bath has now been deep cleaned and kept that way.

For years I've said I can do three things in a day. Barn, house, family. Ride, family, house. Pasture, family, house. Family, writing, house. The bottom line is that family, which includes the 11 animals we currently live with, is always going to be one of three. That is as it should be. But what it meant was I never got to everything, because there are really 5 things that matter to me: family, write, ride, house, barn/pasture/farm. So I was forever juggling it all, making bits of progress, then losing it again as other things piled up.

Now what happens is a couple of amazing people do one of the things while I do the others, and at least some of the time, I see projects getting done much more quickly than they otherwise would.

I'm an introvert at heart so some of the time I go through a half hour of stress about having someone here, but once that passes I appreciate the help and am grateful that at this point in our lives we can afford to make the choice to put some resources toward getting it.

Yesterday while the downstairs was being managed by someone other than me, I sat in my garret and reduced three piles of paperwork to nothing, checked about 6 things off my to do list, and prepared the sleeping set-up to accommodate having the attic AC/heat unit inspected and two rooms painted. It's amazing what I can get done when the pressure of trying to do it all is removed.

The message beneath all this is not about hiring people to help, although that is part of it. At its core, the message is about me allowing for the fact that I can let go of my own desire to Get Everything Done. It's something I have worked on for years but hiring people to help has not only helped get some needed work done, it's shifted my mobile, to use an analogy I often use with clients. When we change something, just one thing, it shifts everything else around. So often we think we have to make huge changes to see a difference in our lives, our relationships, our selves. But many times just making one change results in a whole new way of being. Like a mobile hanging in a room. If you touch just one part, the whole things shifts.

And that is what I've done.

November Hill farm journal, 181

 The first day of May! Which means our busy April has come and gone, with many birthdays celebrated, including Apache Moon, Keil Bay, dear husband, and dear daughter, whose cake has become a tradition for all of us:

We’re so proud of her graduating this week and moving on to her PhD program in the fall. She earned the honor of Outstanding Senior in the School of Sciences and these two birthday lemurs showed up to commend her. 

In other news, the herd had hoof trims on Saturday and the trimmer said she thought Keil Bay was the most stable she’s seen him, so I’m very happy that was noticeable to her. Overall he’s doing well and the biggest challenge to the herd these days is our see-sawing weather. Rain, heat, chilly, you name it. 

This week we had two very big rains and our garage flooded - not totally but it’s been awhile since we had this happen, so it was not a great surprise. Drying things out with fans and have reached out to see if we can have some waterproofing done. 

Am continuing to work in the garden beds and enjoying all the blooming things. I added a couple of new native species to my front bed - foam flower and woodland phlox - and will update my native plant series soon. 

Spending time at the desk Mondays - Wednesdays with a plan to soon get to spending some time there Thursdays with writing work. I enjoy my space and the work I do and I also love the joyful things I have arranged there to give me little breaks and good energy:

I found this pony figure at a craft fair several years ago and the name of the studio? Fat Pony Studios. I could not resist. 

It’s time, in my personal opinion, for a calm and easy month of puttering and working and enjoying the season. May you have that too, in whatever form makes you happy.