Productive day

I've gotten a lot done since I got home from work today.  I had my doubts about getting home, though.  River Road and Nicholson were super deep in water -- odd, since I hadn't really noticed anything but plain ol' rain at the office downtown.  But then when I got almost home, the whole area around the store at the corner was under water!  Even our road!  When I watched the evening news, though, it was obvious that there really had been a problem here at the house while I was away.  For some reason, our tiny little town got twice the amount of rain that everyone else got this afternoon.  No wonder the whole place is full of water!

The weatherman is obviously amused by the extra rain there near our house (that's where he's pointing).

The area on the house side of the barn was flooded as well, but I'm hoping that by morning everything will be back to normal.

In the meantime, I'm washing all of the horse blankets.  Unfortunately, I discovered that while Duke's blanket was hanging under his tummy the other day, he apparently peed on it -- not that he would have had any other option, actually.  And when I got up close to him that evening, the odor was definitely "distinctive."  So I took it off of him and tried to tidy him up some.  Now I've got his blanket washed and I'm about to wash both of Lizzie's blankets as well.  She has an unfortunate habit of rolling around in the mud on a regular basis.  On the plus side, if she's wearing a blanket at least IT picks up the mud and not Lizzie!   And the blankets are all pretty good about having the mud just fall off as soon as it dries.  (That mud rolling thing must be a typical horse trick that the blanket manufacturers prepare for.)

  

I had been keeping Lizzie in either a fly sheet or a blanket all the time just to keep flies off of her wound.  But wearing a blanket constantly seems to be reducing that awful winter coat she develops as a result of her Cushings disease. 

This was taken late last winter -- NOT a nice "look." 

She was already on her way to that winter "look" when she got that huge cut.  I was resigned to the idea that she would look like a stuffed animal since it had been happening every year.

Here she is the day of her injury.

But since she's been in those blankets and sheets full time, her coat has actually begun to thin out some -- a fine thing since she's generally way too warm anytime it gets over 50 degrees!  The vet told me to keep her shaved, but that's just not that easy! 

  

I don't have any pictures of her whole self at the moment, but maybe you can see the difference in the hair on her neck.  It hasn't been brushed in this picture so it looks pretty tacky -- but at least it ISN'T as fuzzy as it usually would be anyway.

Well, we'll see how it goes.  She IS going to continue to wear something or other all the rest of this winter, so come spring, we'll see if it really has helped.