Life as we know it ...

I'm going to live

2012-02-08T21:03:00.000-06:00

I guess I have the flu. Can't be certain that's what it is. But Mark did -- he was sick as a dog for the entire two weeks he was home last time. But I had a flu shot last fall so I figured I'd be safe, and since I still felt fine when Mark went back to work last week I thought I was home free.

But I started to feel a little yukky last weekend. I didn't think it was the flu because it was never all THAT bad -- until yesterday. I started feeling really bad in the afternoon, and by bedtime last night I felt just awful. Stuffed up. Everything hurt. And I'd get cold, then turn the heat up on the mattress pad. Then I'd start to sweat and I'd have to throw all the covers off and turn everything back down. No fun. (Haven't had THAT experience since menopause!) Anyway, I ended up staying home from work today and I spent most of the day in bed.

When I got back up to feed the horses this evening I expected my head to ache and to feel dizzy (because that's what happened when I fed them this morning), but it turned out it wasn't all that bad this time. I did feel a little weak -- but maybe not eating all day had something to do with that! Hard to believe flu would go away that fast, though, so my fingers are crossed. But hey -- maybe flu shots really DO help!

Anyway, if I still feel half decent by morning I'll be heading back to work. I hope I will. One of my bosses has an application she wants filed either tomorrow or Friday (the deadline) so it'll be way better to get back tomorrow so I won't have to deal with everything at the very last second. So wish me well. (literally!)

Another weekend down the drain -- so to speak . . .

2012-02-05T19:53:00.000-06:00

It's been another really short weekend -- aren't they all??? But it's not actually "down the drain." It was pretty productive actually. Buddy and Lisa got everything done that they usually do AND got that drainage ditch for the pond dug AND got the dog yard mowed (despite a barely workable mower). And I finally got around to returning all my overdue books to the library and picking up several books on tape I've had on hold there for a week. AND I took advantage of the Superbowl today and went to do my shopping at Wal-Mart this evening while it was on. That actually worked quite well. There were VERY short lines for a change!

And while I was there, I bought a whole bag of containers of "moth ball crystals." Those "crystals" are sort of chips - much smaller than literal moth "balls" - so they fit easily between the boards of the porch floor! And the moment I got home, I dumped a whole bunch of the stuff under that sleeping porch of ours. So I'm going to try again tonight to sleep out there. (Sure hope all those online sites that say moth balls will drive off any critters that live under the porch are correct!) I'm pretty sure it'll take me a while to relax enough to actually go to sleep out there, but hey -- there's no other way to find out if whatever-it-was is gone now. I was never able to hear or see anything out there in the daytime, or even by walking out there in the middle of the night for that matter. So I HAVE to go lay down out there and lay still and listen for a WHILE in order to tell if whatever it was is gone, so . . . tonight's the night. I'm going to be really careful, though. (Mark said to take one of the guns out there with me but I think that might be a BIT extreme.)

Status of our dogs

2012-02-04T21:20:00.001-06:00

Well, first of all, the dogs seem to FINALLY be getting used to the horses. Rocky was particularly pissy with them, constantly barking and jumping at the fence. But this picture was taken last week -- he's calming down, at least as long as he's the ONLY dog out there. If he and Joey are both out, they seem to encourage each other to harass the horses. (As for Duke, he's always willing to come up to the fence when he sees the dogs -- whether they're barking or not! He seems fascinated with them.)

Rocky generally just seems much cheerier than he's been most of the time in the past. (And he doesn't mind being photographed either!)

Joey, on the other hand, does NOT care to be photographed particularly.

When I talk to him he WILL look at me, but when he sees the camera he's less than excited.

(He's still cute, though, huh?)

But once the flash goes off a time or two he is REALLY ready to climb UNDER his blanket.

But Rocky is NEVER unhappy, no matter how many flashes go off, as long as I keep talking to him and telling him what a good, good boy he is. (And he IS, too!)

Now if it looks like he's going to jump up and I tell him to "stay" he does get a bit concerned and a little less cheery. (But he does listen.)

As for Boo? He's still his same old self. A sweet, sweet boy who's generally VERY "active." But once he's ready to go to bed . . . he goes to bed.

Boo is a beautiful boy - but he's not nearly as photogenic as the other two.

Oh well. Neither am I. What the heck.

We don't mind, do we Boo?

UPDATE: I WISH I had had my camera in hand when I turned Joey out a few minutes ago! He has been ignoring the horses for the last couple weeks so I THOUGHT that problem was over. It might have been if Duke weren't such a playful boy. As I mentioned earlier, he generally wanders over to the dog yard fence whenever there's a dog out there just to say "hello." But when he did that a minute ago with Joey out there, Joey apparently thought Duke was coming after him or something because when Duke stuck his nose up to the fence Joey started barking and jumping at the fence again! I was about to go out and bring him in when I saw Duke jump to one side as if he were frightened. But nooooo . . . he was just playing! He jumped back the other way and raced down the fence with Joey racing right alongside him. When he got past the end of the dog yard and realized Joey couldn't keep running with him, he turned and ran BACK the other way! They raced all the way back to the other end, then Duke turned and ran back AGAIN! After three trips back and forth, he finally stopped and stood looking at Joey for a few minutes. When Joey wouldn't shut up, Duke just wandered back out to the pasture and Joey turned and came inside. Duke probably thinks he's not much fun and Joey probably thinks he ran Duke off. Sigh. But Joey sure got plenty of exercise out there that time. Guess that's a good thing, Well, the good part is that he is able to race up and down again these days. That's so good.

And Duke is such a special guy. He has SO much personality. But I've never seen even Duke "play" with a dog like that before.

And by the way -- Joey was just as fast as Duke! It might be interesting to see who could run faster out in an open field one day . . . IF I could ever trust Joey enough to let him do that. But that probably won't ever happen. Still . . . gotta wonder. Or maybe Duke was just pacing himself to run alongside Joey. He probably was, come to think of it, since I've seen him moving out even faster than that at times. (Just ask Lizzie!) But Joey WAS pretty darned fast!

Wet weekend . . .

2012-02-04T20:29:00.000-06:00

It's been raining and raining and raining . . . "fronts" keep coming through causing storms, then they pass and the temperatures go up to 80. Gees. So glad the pasture got graded so the water has someplace to go, that's for sure. But at this point, the "pond" is so full that the tiny stream that drains the water off the rest of the property has gotten to be about 6 to 12 feet wide!

When Buddy and Lisa were here today, Buddy dug a ditch out from the pond out to the big drainage canal next to the property so that enough water could run out of the pond to lower some of the water in the stream.

Duke is standing there watching, but note that he is NOT touching the fence.
He seems to think ALL of the fences are hot now -- not just the wire portion -- a fine thing!

Mark had planned to dig a DEEP channel from the pond out to the drainage canal, put in a big drain pipe, then put the dirt back over top so it would still be possible to drive across there, but the pond could still drain. But we didn't think that would be necessary until spring. Instead, this has been an incredibly warm AND wet winter so the pond needs to be able to drain NOW. In fact, although we did have about a week of freezing nights that killed all the plants, the ferns have grown back up (before I even got around to cutting back the dead stuff), and the azaleas and jessamine are blooming as if it were spring. In fact, even the tulip tree has budded and is about to bloom! Of course, this IS Louisiana -- we'll probably have yet another serious freeze soon that will kill them all AGAIN.

Oh, look at this - when Buddy and Lisa got here today, Lisa got out holding a tiny baby goat! Soooo cute!

When their mother goat started to deliver earlier in the week, though, it was a nightmare for her. Buddy was at work and Lisa could not get the poor baby out. She ended up having to haul Momma Goat over to LSU where they eventually did a C-section. Mom and baby are both fine now, but that incident scared Lisa to death. I can imagine! So NO MORE BABIES. Anyway, "Dixie" - this baby - came along today so Lisa could feed her every couple hours. Talk about adorable!

Duke was having a "different" sort of day today. He usually acts like a giant puppy while they're around, but today . . . not so much. He did come over and watch while Buddy dug that pond drain. But he had a different sort of "stand up" attitude.

Duke not only isn't sticking his head through the fence, he doesn't even TOUCH it anymore. Excellent!

Instead he was acting like he wanted to protect Lizzie or something. He kept standing there by the pond staring over at the guy across the road who was working in his yard. That guy never looks like a dangerous guy to me, but apparently Duke wasn't so sure about that. He'd stand and stare, then race around for a while with his head and tail both high in the air -- very "superior" looking. But tonight he was back to his old sweet self. So no telling WHAT he was thinking at the time.

I went over to Wal-Mart just after I took these pictures to get some things while Lisa and Buddy were still here, but just as I drove into the parking lot it got suddenly very dark and the sky opened up and it started to storm BIG TIME. So I just turned around and drove right back home. The rain was so heavy it was hard to see, but it only lasted about 10 or 15 minutes and by the time I got back home that front had passed and the rain had almost stopped, so I hosed down Duke's legs and ALL of Lizzie. (She was COVERED in mud AGAIN.)

Messy girl.

So she's locked in her stall now until tomorrow so she can't go roll in the mud AGAIN. I brushed her down after they ate tonight. I still couldn't get her hair to straighten out but at least she COULD be brushed. Her hair was a solid muddy mass that could NOT be brushed before, so at least it's an improvement. I was hoping if I could keep her clean I'd be able to saddle her up tomorrow, but although they WERE saying it wouldn't rain until tomorrow night, I see on the latest weather report that there's a 90% chance of rain by noon now. So I guess it depends on whether I get up at dawn or not. We'll see.

Wonder what's there . . .

2012-02-03T13:12:00.000-06:00

Well, when I talked to Mark last night, he said it was highly unlikely that there could be a giant snake under that bed on the porch. (He didn't laugh, but I think it MIGHT have crossed his mind.) He said something like a possum or a raccoon or an armadillo would be a lot more likely. We do have a lot of them living around our property -- at the base of trees and under bushes and just in the ground all over the place, so I guess that's certainly possible. I stood outside last night for a while and didn't hear anything so MAYBE whatever-it-is has gone from inside the porch, but I kind of think now that whatever it is probably lives UNDER that porch since both Rocky and Boo have been trying to dig under there after SOMETHING for the last couple weeks. Checked online and it said that female possums in particular really try and live inside walls and in attics and under houses. It also said that throwing moth balls under there may encourage a possum to leave - not sure what would drive off those other two critters -- I haven't had time to check on all of them yet. But LOTS of mothballs are definitely going under there THIS weekend. Maybe even tonight!

And when Mark gets home it will be time to install a new (lockable) dog door out there, and I'm thinking it might be a good idea to put down some quarter-inch plywood over the floor out there, as well, then either paint it or cover it with indoor/outdoor carpet.

Sorry, Mark! Your "list" just never gets any shorter, does it!

Scary night!

2012-02-02T13:02:00.000-06:00

Got everyone fed and let out and brought back in etc. etc. etc. and was happily headed for bed on time last night. (Yes - out on the sleeping porch.) But an hour or so after I went to bed, I woke up hearing "something" moving those heavy voltage converters that are on the floor under the head of the bed. They're part of the cords for the heated mattress pad controls and they probably weigh a good pound or more each, so whatever was moving them HAD to be LARGE! We're talking throwing them against the wall at the top of the bed! When I jumped up and moved away from the bed it got quiet. So I stomped on the floor - still nothing. I began to think that maybe whatever it was had been UNDER the porch and I just thought I heard it coming from underneath the bed. So I got back into the bed and stared at the ceiling for a while - couldn't sleep. And sure enough -- ten minutes or so later I heard it AGAIN!! Yikes! Ran inside and got the dogs. They both went straight over to the bed sniffing like crazy around it. But then all of a sudden they ran back over to the door and wanted back inside! Uh-oh! I took that for some serious advice on their part to get the heck out of there! So I gathered up my pillows and ran inside for the night. My biggest fear is that since it sounded really large but did not "run" when I stomped and hollered, and because the dogs decided they reaaaaaly didn't want to go after it, then maybe -- just MAYBE -- it's a big snake! Ooooooh! Shivers! I hope Buddy is as fearless about snakes as he is rats. If he is, I'm going to ask him this weekend to lift up that bed and check to see what the heck might be under there! (Mark is back offshore - as he invariably is when disaster of any sort strikes -- so I can't ask him to check it out.)

But until it does get checked I will DEFINITELY be sleeping inside like a "normal" person. I may not be a normal person when it comes to where I like to sleep, but I'm definitely a cowardly person when it comes to "creatures"!! If it does turn out to be a snake, I WILL definitely be covering that little -- maybe 2" X 3" -- hole in the porch floor near the bed with a piece of wood or something. For that matter, I may just get some of that cheap outdoor carpeting and carpet the whole darned porch floor so nothing can come up through ANY of those spaces between the floor boards. I'm telling you, every time I think about that sound I get the chills. (There's a lot to be said for being in an office high up in a high-rise building! At least I can concentrate of my work -- more than I can say at home at the moment.)

We're drowning!

2012-02-01T22:14:00.001-06:00

The trip home from work today was awful. Almost two inches of rain came down during that short period of time. Frightening. By the time I got over to the River Road it was flooded! I was SO glad to be driving a truck. The water was clear up to the running boards for a good half mile! Almost everyone turned off and headed over toward Nicholson, but I figured I was already at the lowest point so what the heck, might as well keep going. I did eventually get home (obviously), but it did take a while. I felt bad this morning that I hadn't dropped Joey off at therapy, but tonight it was a serious relief not to have to pick him up! I just wanted to get home and out of that rain as soon as possible.

As for the horses, when I finally got home and went out to feed them, Duke was standing there on his "porch" totally immaculate and entirely dry. Even though he hadn't been locked inside his paddock today at all he obviously had stayed in his stall as he usually does when it rains. That's so good. Well . . . it might be a BIT of a problem if someone happened to be riding him when it began to thunder, of course, because if he's out when it starts to rain he FLIES back to his stall. But he does stay pristine that way. ;-D

Now Lizzie? She was completely, totally, absolutely SOAKED to the skin -- even though she WAS locked in her paddock. There was nowhere she could go, so apparently she just stood outside and let the rain pour over her. Gotta wonder how she thinks. EVERYTHING she has is inside -- her hay, her food, her water, lots of stall shavings so she can comfortably lay down if she likes. Even a window so she could hang out with Duke. But no. She stands outside -- even if it storms. Hopeless.

Luckily, I did hear on TV this morning that there might be intermittent storms today with high winds, so I stuck a spare shower curtain I had over the window side of the bed on the sleeping porch and set the dog bed on top to hold it in place. Darned good thing because there was a lot of water on it when I got home. There must have been some serious winds because even though there's a 2-foot overhang around the porch and it's completely screened, the rain still blew in and soaked the floor for a good two or three feet inside.

You can't see the water on the sleeping porch because of the rugs, but look at the floor on the cats' porch! There are walls 2 feet high below those screens and a 2-foot roof overhang outside, so there had to have been some really high winds to blow that much water inside!

Guess I may have to put some sort of waterproof curtains up out there after all - at least around the bed. If a storm as short-lived as today's could get everything that wet, I hate to think about what a mess it would be during a regular all-day rain with high winds. Sigh. One more thing for "THE LIST."

Well, I better get to bed. I need to go in really early tomorrow if I can. Got a LOT of things that have to get done by Friday, and Joey has a dermatology recheck Friday at 11, so I'll be taking a long lunch. Better try and get all that stuff done tomorrow, "just in case."

One of "those" mornings

2012-02-01T12:21:00.000-06:00

Just a minute or so after my alarm went off at 5:45 it suddenly began to POUR down rain. Just instantly! But I kind of enjoy listening to heavy rain out there on the porch so I turned off my alarm and lay there for a minute. Unfortunately, I enjoyed it so much that I fell back to sleep and didn't wake up until 20 after 6. NOT good. So I jumped up and started letting the dogs out. Boo and Rocky - fine. Joey? Nope. He absolutely REFUSED to go out in the heavy rain. So I went ahead and headed for the barn and fed the horses. THAT took a while, too, since apparently Lizzie had stayed in her stall all night so I had a LOT of "tidying up" to do in there before feeding her. When I got back inside, that portion of the storm had passed and it was barely drizzling so I went to let Joey out again and . . . yep -- he had gone on the floor over by the bedside table. So I not only had to clean up the floor, I had to clean under the nightstand AND clean off all the cords behind the stand -- the phone, the light, the heated mattress pad, the radio . . . grrrrrr! By the time I finally got ready to head for work, it was after 8 so I didn't even bother to drop off Joey at therapy today. But I was still a half hour late for work! (It had started pouring down rain again and the traffic was AWFUL!)

THEN, when I got to work, I had half a dozen e-mails from my boss about an application LSU wants filed by FRIDAY waiting for me. That filing would be "iffy" enough under normal circumstances, but I happen to have two OTHER applications I need to have done in just a few days - both of which have dozens of drawings and sequences . . . MUCH more time consuming than a standard app.

Well anyway. Now that I'm done venting I'll relax and go eat lunch and I'll feel better.

(I love my job. I love my job. I love my job. I love Joey. I love Joey. I love Joey.)

Sigh.

Fence update

2012-01-31T12:38:00.000-06:00

We kept an eye on the horses for hours after that fence charger was installed Saturday to be sure they wouldn't freak when they found out it was hot, but -- nothing. Both of them hung out all day Saturday AND Sunday in the front part of the pasture where the fence is those 5" wide strips that are not electrified. Hmmm. Did they KNOW the other fence was "hot"? I really wanted to see them go close to that fence so I could be sure neither of them would be so frightened that they might race off and run through it at some other point. But I finally just stopped worrying about it since they seemed to be completely ignoring it. Okay. It got electrified on Saturday afternoon. Well, in the middle of the night on Sunday night I woke up to the sound of thundering hooves! Talk about LOUD! Duke came FLYING into his paddock and straight into his stall where he stood snorting for a good ten minutes. Now, I can't be certain, but it sure seems like he waited until the middle of the night, then went back there to check out that fence. Sneaky boy. Well, at least he heads for his stall when he's shocked and doesn't try and head down the road!

But that was the only time that happened. And I haven't seen him trying to eat the grass outside the fence a single time since then.

As for Lizzie -- she's NEVER gone near the fence - even before it was charged. So maybe she's been around a hot wire in the past. But she certainly seems to know perfectly well not to touch one. She does, however, go stand staring out the gate leading out of her paddock into the front yard a LOT. Hope she isn't able to communicate to Duke her desire to go out there! The wire fencing around HER paddock is NOT charged (the space is too small for that), so he could let her out if he wanted to. I would have thought it was ridiculous to worry about something like that at one point. Now? Hey - anything is possible when it comes to Duke!

Monday is over . . .

2012-01-30T20:14:00.000-06:00

Just four more days 'til the weekend! (No wonder I'm old . . . I keep hoping against hope that time will go by more quickly -- and then it DOES!)

One interesting thing today. John told me this morning that he's fostering a 4-year-old Weimaraner for the next 4 or 5 months. (He didn't say why and I forgot to ask.) But when I told him I absolutely love Weimaraners and that I had had about half a dozen of them over the years, he said great - maybe I should take "Maggie." Hmm. I really do love Weimaraners, but they are so hard-headed and require so much obedience training that I haven't had one for some time now. But I'll tell you what, if JOHN actually does keep this girl for the next few months, then I might very well consider it -- especially since she's a female. Given that all three of ours are males at the moment, a female would fit right in. But the main thing is that once she's lived with John for that long she will no doubt be an entirely different girl! John is SO good at training dogs. It's absolutely amazing. I think I'd definitely like to run by there in a month or two and see what she's like by then!

But adopting her isn't something I would consider unless she's become EXTREMELY obedient. I just don't have it in me to fool with an untrained dog that large anymore.

And then there's Boo. He had been sleeping upstairs last night. Then this morning just before dawn, I heard him crying and jumping around up there and carrying on really loudly! I thought maybe he was desperate to go out for some reason, so I opened the back door and called him, but he just stayed up there and kept on whining. So I turned on the light over the stairs getting ready to go see what was wrong with him, but the moment the light came on, he came flying down and raced out into the kitchen and drank and drank and drank out of his water bucket. So apparently he was dying of thirst but he couldn't see well enough to come down the stairs. Poor guy! We WILL be leaving a night light on for him from now on. I'll have to look into what might cause night blindness in a dog -- but maybe it's just that he isn't as "youthful" as he generally acts. He IS 9 years old - not at all young for as big a guy as he is. Guess I should take him in for a check-up sometime soon.

Such a sweet boy . . . poor baby.

Another productive weekend

2012-01-29T22:30:00.000-06:00

After Duke broke through the 5-wire fence around his paddock I got really concerned because that same sort of 5-wire fence is what we have around the entire back pasture. So despite the fact that he's been sick as a dog ever since he got home this time, Mark got busy and installed the solar fence charger on that back fence. Now Duke will NOT break through it and wonder off down the road, nor will the neighborhood stray dogs get into the pasture to harass our horses. (I never worried about that when Bug was alive, but Duke and Lizzie are waaaaay too friendly with dogs to be entirely safe.)

And while Mark was electrifying the fences, Lisa and Buddy cleaned up both horses. Now Duke -- no problem. Grooming him is never a problem - it's actually fun. Lizzie? . . . NOT so much.

Duke and Lizzie AFTER getting cleaned up Saturday.

Duke always looks wonderful. Lizzie always looks . . . well, LESS than wonderful. But over the last few days she looked and felt like a horse statue instead of a horse. She had rolled in so much mud that it felt like she was made of clay, with no actual hair.

But although she still doesn't LOOK as good as Duke, at least you can tell she actually has hair now. They got most of the heavy dirt off of her -- although if you pat her a dust cloud DOES still rise! But Lisa and I talked and decided that if it gets warm one weekend we'll give her a bath. (Of course then we'll have to lock her in her stall for the day until she dries out completely or she'll be right back to rolling in the dirt! Sigh.)

Oh - when Mark was installing that fence charger, the door to the storage building got left open, so I walked over to close it because the LAST time a door was open to that building, Duke walked in there, then couldn't figure out how to get back out. When I figured out where he had gone, he was looking out the front window! I was afraid he was going to rear up and put his legs through the glass! So when I saw the building open on Saturday, I hurried over there to close that door. Well, it's been YEARS since I even looked inside the place. Check this out! I couldn't BELIEVE what it's like in there! We probably need to just hire one of those companies that come out and haul things off for you. I'm sure there's all kinds of stuff in there that Mark might need -- but how the heck could he possibly FIND it if it IS in there!!!

No WONDER Duke couldn't figure out how to get back out! I don't think I could either!

Oh well -- that's up to Mark, I guess. But he wants to clear out the other half of the garage so he can park the Expedition in there. In order to do that, he's going to have to clear out the storage building to make room for all the stuff that's in the garage. You know, I don't think either of us has it in us to do a project of that magnitude anymore. Time to get more help, I think. We'll probably need a giant dumpster among other things from the looks of it. Well, Mark will be heading back to work on Tuesday, so nothing is going to happen for at least another couple weeks. (I hope he's well again when he comes home next time!) But it's time to stop worrying about it for now, I guess.

Oh - and once Buddy and Lisa finished with the horses, Buddy came in and moved that queen sized bed down from the upstairs guest room to my sleeping porch for me (and took the twin bed that was on the porch before upstairs -- I'm going to turn that into a daybed.). But wow, am I ever happy about having that queen bed out there! It is SO great to be able to sleep outside on a "real" bed!

That table on the right is just there to keep the dogs from getting to the plugs for the electric mattress pad (on the right side of the bed) when they're out there during the day. I move it back over at night when I'm out there so there's actually more room along the sides than there appears to be.

There's just a little more than a foot of space on each side, now, but that's plenty for me. I'm thinking, though, that I might need to add a pipe along the top of that screen wall so that if there is a horrendous rain storm with high winds I'll be able to pull some waterproof curtains closed to protect that bed now that it sits so close to that screened wall. Or on second thought, maybe I should just get a giant plastic tablecloth and put THAT on top of the bed if it storms. That's probably way simpler, come to think of it.

Well, it's almost 11 -- time to go out and put that bed to use!

Yikes! Duke -- again.

2012-01-26T16:28:00.001-06:00

Mark just scared me to half to death! He called and said "Duke got out." WHAT!! Oh no! Not again! Is he okay? Do you know where he went?

When I got done carrying on Mark explained that Duke broke one wire on the five-wire fence on the back side of his paddock, then he CLIMBED OUT. And THEN he climbed back through Lizzie's fence into her paddock. Can you believe!

When Mark first saw the broken fence, he walked all over, clear out to the back of the property looking everywhere for Duke. When he couldn't find him, he grabbed a lead rope and was heading for the car when he saw him standing calmly inside LIZZIE'S (locked) PADDOCK! Good grief!

I guess until we can add those heavy steel fence panels to ALL sides of his paddock we better not try and keep him locked in by himself. So maybe when they finish eating, we better open the gate between their paddocks so he can go hang out with Lizzie if he feels like it.

Duke was apparently unable to convince Lizzie that she should climb through that fence he broke in through and go out into the pasture with him, so he stayed there with her in her paddock. So maybe just letting him into her paddock would be good enough to keep him in place. He is a pretty self-centered boy who think he deserves to have mares following him around at all times. I think he misses all "the girls" over at Al's place. And I know he misses Bug (we all do). But I hope hanging with Lizzie will be enough to keep him in line.

I'll tell you what. You THINK you have everything in place -- and then you put the horses in and find out that's just NOT the case! I don't think you're ever actually done with horse facilities because given enough time, horses (well - Duke for sure) will come up with SOMETHING you have to fix. I think the boy is just too darned smart for his own good.

Update

2012-01-26T08:53:00.003-06:00

NO tornado last night. Whew! Mark tells me over and over again that tornadoes "never strike below I-10." Now what kind of effect an interstate could possibly have on weather is beyond me, but that does seem to be the case - regardless of whether he made that up! I've been in Louisiana for all but 9 years since 1974 and have never seen it happen in our area in all that time. I still get a little nervous - well, okay . . . maybe a LOT nervous - when the weather service sends out tornado warnings, but it HAS never actually happened here.

There may have been no tornado, but there WAS a horrendous amount of rain last night. This morning our "pond" is full to the top and there are huge puddles all over the property, but today is the last day it's supposed to rain for the next week so I'm hoping that by Saturday morning the ground will have dried out enough that the horses can be turned back out (at last) and the grass wouldn't by destroyed by the horses trampling it while it's soaking wet. And with all that rain, the winter rye grass we planted in late fall has grown at least a few inches over the last week so I'm sure Duke and Lizzie are going to be ecstatic. Good grass in winter! Wow!

Rain, rain, rain ...

2012-01-25T13:39:00.000-06:00

Yep - it's going to rain this entire week - and storm big time late tonight, according to the weather. That, combined with temperatures close to 80, means it's REALLY muggy down here. But I keep reminding myself that it's STILL way better than ice and snow -- especially now that the place is graded so we don't flood! And it'll only be a few more days. The weekend is supposed to be really nice.

Today: warm, windy, 50-50 chance rain/storms, a high of 78
Tonight: showers/storms likely, slight risk for severe weather, a low of 64
Tomorrow: showers/storms likely, SW winds 5 - 15 mph; a high of 73
Tomorrow PM: 20% chance of light rain, cooler, clearing late
Friday: AM partly cloudy; PM more sunshine; a high of 64
Normal High for January 25: 63 degrees
Normal Low for January 25: 41 degrees
Record High: 85, set in 1909
Record Low: 17, set in 1963
As of late morning, several parishes across north central and southwestern Louisiana have already been placed under a "tornado watch" - as of yet, that "watch" area does *not* include southeast Louisiana (metro BR) or southern Mississippi. Nonetheless, a potent storm system is on the move, out of eastern Texas and into our state later today .... bringing scattered showers/storms into our viewing area by late this afternoon/evening.
We also have the risk of severe weather during the overnight hours - predawn - early morning Thursday. The main threat appears to be damaging winds but an isolated tornado can't be ruled out.
Good news, though, cooler temperatures and clearing skies will return just in time for the weekend!

Diane Deaton
Storm Team Weathercaster

Now if any tornado that's created when that approaching cold front hits our heat will just skip us . . .

NOTE: Just got an e-mail about the weather -- tornado watch until 9 PM. (Fingers crossed.)

Raining AGAIN

2012-01-24T13:25:00.003-06:00

Just stepped into one of my bosses' offices and looked out his glass wall to see heavy, heavy rain pouring down. They SAID it was going to rain again tonight, but it wasn't even noon just now when I saw it pouring. Checked online and it's supposed to do that ALL WEEK. Boooo!

When I talked to Mark a minute ago, he said both horses were just standing quietly in their respective doorways watching the rain come down. Doesn't sound like they're having fun, but at least it shows they are becoming more "civilized" than they used to be - especially Lizzie!

We bought Lizzie up in West Monroe from a woman who had only had her for a couple months so who knows how she spent the majority of her life. But Mark nicknamed her "North Louisiana Trailer Trash" not long after we got her -- primarily because she wasn't happy unless she was completely coated with dirt. (THAT she's still not over!) And second, she would constantly poop inside her stall and THEN she'd walk back and forth through it and mix it in with the shavings to the point where it couldn't possibly be cleaned up! She does still go inside her stall sometimes - probably less than a quarter of the time now though -- but she has gotten past that "cat" behavior of covering it with the shavings as if they were cat litter, so at least it can be cleaned up these days. Progress!

Oh - and when I talked to Mark a little while ago he was almost understandable once again. Thank goodness! When he first came home he had a bad BAD cold or flu or SOMETHING and was barely intelligible. I've been afraid to go anywhere near him! Usually it's me that gets that stuff and Mark who seems to be immune to it all. But half the people at the office seem to have the same thing but I'm still just fine. (Knock on wood.)

Well, lunch is over - back to work. More later.

Quite a night!

2012-01-23T10:03:00.000-06:00

As usual, I slept outside on the porch last night. That generally means I sleep straight through without waking up. But not last night! Whew! About 3 AM I sat straight up in bed - my closed eyes felt like I'd looked directly at the sun and it sounded like a bomb had exploded. I can't remember when I've seen that much lightening and thunder. Even Lizzie went into her stall -- and she usually likes being rained on! And all the dogs were awake and pacing. Rocky couldn't decide whether to come outside where I was or stay inside where the noise was at least a little muffled. The rain itself was no heavier than usual, but wow - SO much lightening!

When I listened to the news this morning on the way to work (in the fog - again), I heard that when that storm got over to Alabama it brought along some tornadoes and a number of people were killed. Scary.

It's cleared out now, but I hear it's going to storm again tonight and all day tomorrow. Then again Wednesday night. Then again Thursday night. Duke is NOT going to be happy that he won't be allowed out of his paddock all week. But then again, when he gets turned out this weekend I WILL have my camera handy this time.

2012-01-22T11:18:00.001-06:00

I'm sure most of you have probably seen or read about Erin Bolster and her horse "Tonk" by now,

Erin is tall, but Tonk is enormous - a Percheron cross who weighs 1800 pounds!

but in case you haven't, check out this Letterman interview. When I first read about the incident, I was surprised, first, that she would ride TOWARD an attacking grizzly, and even more surprised that a HORSE was willing to listen to her and actually do that! Amazing. There are a LOT of articles out there, but I like this article the best.

Okay -- back to "real life." It's been in the high 70's down here all week. Nice.

And what are we doing that's interesting? Truthfully? . . . not much. Well, we ARE going to switch out the little twin bed on our sleeping porch with the queen size bed from one of the guest rooms. That particular guest room isn't huge, so a daybed will be just fine. But the real reason for the switch is that when I'm sleeping outside in freezing weather and turn over in that bed, I end up waking up because my butt is freezing! . . . the covers are just too narrow. So once we switch out the beds, I'll be able to comfortably turn over WITHOUT waking myself up! AND it will be possible for both Mark and me to sleep out there (if I can talk him into it). Excellent!

Oh - and about that SUV . . . here are the "real" photos:

Here's Mark arriving home from Houston on Friday

And here it is in daylight (yesterday when we were about to drive across town to find some French Roast Cool Brew)

The interior. Looks darned good for a five-year-old vehicle with all those miles.
And it's large enough that I think Mark could drive it wearing a cowboy hat!
Can't say that about anything else we've ever owned.

So - it looks like we will be keeping it (instead of trading it in on something Mark likes better). Turns out he likes it a lot after all. And although I doubt that we will ever have to do it, it's good to know we have a vehicle now that can easily contain ALL our animals in case we ever do have to evacuate for some reason. My truck can, of course, pull our (relatively light) horse trailer, but this one will pull up to 11,000 lbs. -- about twice as much as mine. And there is so much space in the back that fitting in 3 dogs and 5 cats would be NO problem.
Oh - when we went to pick up the other car at the airport Friday after he got home, I saw for the first time the water-fall wall they've built between the airport and the parking garage. Now when you come out of the terminal, the view is vastly improved.

The water doesn't show up all that well in those pictures, but it really is lovely.

Okay. Enough about all that. Time to go saddle up Lizzie.

Happy Friday!

2012-01-20T10:30:00.000-06:00

Well, on the plus side, that Expedition Mark picked up in Houston yesterday really IS gorgeous -- and surprisingly, Mark says he thinks it got almost 20 mpg on the way back over from Houston - WAY better than we expected. These pictures aren't our car, but they are exactly the same as it is (except the wheels on ours are better looking).

See those two VERY large handles on the passenger side? --
I'll be VERY happy to have those next time we drive to Ohio!!

I ordered a mat for this back part last night. Once it gets here next week, Boo will get to go everywhere with his "Dad" again. (That center ceiling thing is a DVD player for "the kids" but I doubt that Boo would be interested in that. He's not into movies.)

HOWEVER . . . I still have to say that I think his company really should be embarrassed about the way they talked about it compared to the actual vehicle. What do I mean? Well, what I mean is that it is only a 2006 with over 150,000 miles on it! Now, as I said, it really IS still absolutely immaculate and it's in really great shape. Mechanically perfect, wonderful brand new Michelin tires, not a single scratch or dent anywhere. And Mark really does like it. But still . . . they could have been a BIT more forthcoming, wouldn't you think?

Oh well. It's Friday and since Buddy and Lisa are coming today instead of tomorrow to deal with the pasture AND the horses (they're going to groom both of them for us) we're going to have the entire weekend to visit friends and ride the horses. Nice. VERY nice.

I'm especially glad they're going to clean up Lizzie for me. I really do want to ride this weekend, but when it stormed this week Duke headed for his stall and never even got wet, but Lizzie went out and rolled in the mud -- so that would have meant spending at least another hour getting her groomed so she could be ridden. That usually wears me out so much that I don't get around to riding. But since there's no mud for her to roll in today, whether she tries to be sloppy or not she WILL be getting ridden tomorrow - like it or not!

Finally!

2012-01-19T09:59:00.000-06:00

Well, Mark called to say he had landed in Houston a little after 9 this morning to finally, finally, FINALLY pick up that Expedition he "won." They're having a gathering in the home office over there during which the CEO is supposed to be handing him the keys, then he'll be driving home. Guess we'll need to run out to the airport tomorrow to pick up his old car. I thought about dropping him off, but it's on the other side of town and he needed to be up there before 7, so I would have had to get up even earlier than my usual 5:30 am in order to get everyone fed and myself dressed for work in time to get him out there by 7. No thanks. Decided to just let him drive up there and we can go pick the other car up later. The "other" car . . . I'm already thinking of it that way. ;-)

Heard on the news a day or so ago that the L'Auberge Casino that's going up just a couple miles from us is having a gathering this week to interview for . . . you ready for this? . . . over 1000 new jobs! Whew! And those have nothing to do with the construction. They're all permanent jobs in the casino and accompanying businesses after they open this summer. It seems a bit soon to me to be doing all that hiring since it's not nearly complete. Check out the webcam showing the current status. (It's really fascinating to click on that "time lapse) tab at the top of the photo and watch the river rising to flood level last fall and then going back down.) I knew they would be hiring soon, but I was surprised to hear how many jobs there were actually going to be. I'll tell you what, though -- with that many people working that close by, I think the property values around here are bound to go way up. Gotta love it!

Here are a couple Google satellite views from a while back - it really IS going to be huge, isn't it?

It's that white spot there in the center of this one just above that loop in the river.
And we are just down at the bottom of this view -- not far at all from there.
Maybe 4 or 5 miles.

2012-01-17T13:36:00.000-06:00

Well, I did NOT ride this weekend. I planned to. I got all Lizzie's equipment out to the barn and ready to go. But first I had to groom her, of course. And by the time I got that done I was really tired. So I went inside and sat down for a while and while I was resting I read some of that "Beyond Horse Massage" book by Jim Masterson that I just got a few days ago. I didn't get very far, but it was fascinating and I thought just for the heck of it I'd give that first technique he described an initial try - although I thought I would probably need to wait for the DVD to come and SEE it done before I would actually be able to do it correctly.

I have a couple other books on horse massage, but I got them primarily so I would understand what an equine masseuse might be doing if I were to hire one since my hands are not strong enough to do it myself. But the reason I ordered this particular book was because when I read pages from it on Amazon, I saw that the levels of pressure listed contained more than half that I COULD see myself able to use. When I started reading the book yesterday, the first technique he described he instructed be done using that "air gap" very light touch. Who would have even considered that?? What good could that possibly do?

Well, let me tell you, what happened when I tried it yesterday was nothing short of amazing to me. Lizzie is not only incredibly head shy, but she does not normally allow you to even pet or groom her unless she's tied in place. So I doubted that the technique he described would actually work at all with her. But what the heck . . . I have the book, I'm waiting on the DVD (so I can actually see Masterson doing it all), so I figured I might as well give that first technique a shot and see how Lizzie would react.

So I started at her poll using that "air gap" super light touch he specified, and she began to pull away instantly just as I expected. But as instructed, I simply stopped and left my hand very lightly in place . . . and SHE stopped as well! I waited a full minute or so, then continued to move incredibly slowly down her neck a couple inches below the midline.

Maybe five minutes later when I got to a point about 5 or 6 inches down her neck, her skin shivered and I stopped and left my hand lightly in place . . . and soon her head went down I could feel her relax and start to chew and lick her lips, just as the book said would happen when a horse relaxes a specific point! Wow! I spent another half hour or so at it (and came across two more spots that relaxed her), and as long as I continued she seemed perfectly happy to stand there! Amazing! At that point I had to stop, though, because my arms were beginning to get exhausted from holding them up like that while being careful not to rest them hard against her. But I'll tell you one thing -- I WILL be finishing that book SOON. Can't wait to see what the rest of the instructions are -- and see Lizzie's reactions to them!

Super Saturday

2012-01-14T18:07:00.002-06:00

Well, I managed to straighten up the INSIDE of the house today, but that isn't all that impressive when you see that Buddy and Lisa cleaned up the entire rest of the property! (Those horses sure aren't the nervous sort, are they? They paid NO attention to that mower whatsoever.)

When Lisa first started to vacuum, though, Duke came over to her and gave her kisses and hung out for a while (even though that mower is RUNNING!) Buddy took these pictures.

Duke seems to really love Lisa, that's for sure. (Maybe I'll put her in my will so that if anything happens to us Duke will get to live with someone he absolutely adores!)

Anyway, when Lisa and Buddy saw that Duke was eating leaves again, the two of them vacuumed up the entire pasture and Lizzie's paddock (her paddock is right next to a woods, so it was full of leaves). Now? Look how immaculate the whole place is!

Even the ground under this heavily wooded area in the pasture is tidy now! Okay, Duke -- NOW you have to eat grass like a "normal" horse -- no more leaves!

When I cleaned up the house inside, I threw a couple of blankets that need washed over by the back door. Boo decided that was a fine place to lay and watch what was going on in the back. (Hmm. Looks like I need to clean up that wall around the fireplace too, doesn't it? It's interesting that I see things in photos that I don't notice at all in "real life.")

Well, since we didn't get around to saddling up the horses today, I think if it's pretty tomorrow I'll at least saddle Lizzie. Since I'll be completely alone, though, I think I'll lock Duke out of the paddocks and just ride her around inside those three paddocks. If THAT works well, then on Monday I'll do it in reverse - lock Duke inside the paddocks and ride Lizzie around the rest of the property.

Going to be a FINE long weekend.

2012-01-12T22:10:00.000-06:00

It is COLD out there! It's supposed to go down to 26 degrees tonight. Hey - this is the SOUTH! We're not supposed to have to deal with that kind of thing!

I put the horses' blankets on them a little while ago. Duke seemed pleased. Lizzie was pissed. Life goes on.

As for me, I'm still going to sleep out on the sleeping porch. I absolutely love sleeping outside in the freezing cold with that heated mattress pad turned all the way up! (I know, I know . . . Mark doesn't understand it either.)

I just read something about Monday being Martin Luther King day. I THINK that means we'll be off on Monday. Great! Looking forward to a long peaceful weekend. One of my bosses has started taking off EVERY Friday and EVERY Monday this year. (She's "gradually" retiring.) Wish I could afford to do that. I don't really want to stop working, but it sure would be good to work less. I talked to one of my bosses about it a while back and he essentially said he doesn't care WHEN I work - just "get it done." So although I haven't started working a short week (can't afford that), I HAVE been working some rather unstandard hours. I go in early, take a short lunch, then leave at 3:30 or 4 - instead of 5 like everyone else. Seems to work for all of us. I get to come home before it gets dark and deal with the horses. But I come in early, check my e-mail (and jobs that have been left on my chair!) and get whatever they need done that day done by the time they get in, usually. And everyone is happy.

And actually, our whole department (well - not really a "department" -- just three attorneys, a secretary and me) works a less-than-standard arrangement. One boss takes his dog to all sorts of dog competitions (agility trials, obedience trials, lure coursing, tracking . . . you name it and his dog is no doubt great at it!) and so he often takes off for long weekends to take his Golden to competitions in various nearby states. Another of the attorneys commutes from New Orleans and is VERY pregnant so she comes in at various times. And the other boss has a husband who lectures all over the world and she takes off to travel with him. Actually, that's the one who's now going to have permanent long weekends. That's probably why. Anyway, I'm glad my last job turned out to be this one. It works perfectly for me.

And speaking of jobs, Wendy has been offered a new job in the town where she lives. If she takes it, she will no longer have to commute to a town an hour away. AND she probably wouldn't have to work the ridiculous hours she's had to work for the last 5 years or so at her present job. I think she's worked a good 50 or 60 hours a week routinely. BAD job. I haven't heard what she's decided to do, but I really REALLY hope she decides to take the new job. She's obviously a whole lot younger than I am so it wouldn't have to be a "last" job, but it would still be good to have a job that makes you happy.

Well now that I'm done spouting about everyone else, it's time to go to bed. I turned on that bed a good hour ago so I'm looking forward to freezing to death between the back door and the bed, then climbing under the covers and curling up in that nice REALLY WARM bed. Ummmm. Good night!

Darn!

2012-01-12T12:40:00.000-06:00

Yesterday when I came home, I decided to turn both horses out for a couple hours before feeding them since they had been locked in their paddocks for several days due to the heavy rains. But their reactions were definitely unexpected. Talk about HILARIOUS! I didn't have my camera with me so I used my phone to try to video the whole thing. But now I can't figure out how the heck to get it off the phone. It's too big to e-mail (that's how I usually access the photos I take with my phone) and for some reason it won't even play back on the phone's screen. Grrrr. Wouldn't you know -- the ONE time there's been something I REALLY wanted to capture and I get NOTHING! (Maybe I shouldn't have tried to take a 15-minute video with a phone, huh?)

The star of that performance was, as usual, Duke. I turned Lizzie out first since I knew that, having been kept in their paddocks for the several days, Duke would be really excited about getting out -- and would harass Lizzie to make her join him in racing around whether she felt like it or not. So I figured she could move out to the middle of the back pasture away from him and THEN I'd turn him out. So I waited until she moved far enough from the paddocks and then I opened Duke's gate. Wow! He literally FLEW out of there and headed for poor Lizzie. There is a drainage ditch - well, not exactly a "ditch" but a space about 20 feet wide that slopes down very gradually so you can easily walk or mow across it. Well Duke was racing out there so fast that when he came to that he jumped across it! That jump had to have been a good 15 feet or more! Amazing! The silly boy acts like he's barely able to go over a 6" post laying on the ground when ridden, but I'll tell you what -- knowing that he was able to jump across a gate that was bent down on one side so that he had to jump UP more than 3 feet and across about 6 feet when he escaped a month or two ago, and now that I've seen him jump across a good 15 or more feet, there will be NO convincing me that he can't do a WHOLE lot more than he pretends he's able to do!

Anyway, once Lizzie saw him heading her way, she raced over behind the cottage to hide from him but no such luck. He raced around there after her and seconds later they both flew back out into the pasture at full speed! (God, Lizzie is gorgeous when she runs! Her gait is sooooo smooth.)

As Duke ran Lizzie around, Rocky (who was out in the dog yard) was barking his head off and racing up and down the fence. Apparently that pissed off Duke because when he came by there he left Lizzie and raced up to the fence to deal with Rocky! I thought for sure he was going to race right into that fence, but he came to a screeching halt, at the same time turning around so that he managed to kick at the fence and scare the crap out of Rocky. That was the first time Duke has ever done anything but just walk up and sniff at him. But this time, he kicked at him a number of times and when Rocky ran, so did Duke -- up and down the fence line, stopping to kick at him whenever Rocky got really close to the fence.

After a good 15 minutes of that, Duke finally came over to me where I was standing on the porch next to his stall "thinking" I was videotaping all of that - but no such luck, dadburn it!

I'll tell you one thing, if they get locked in their paddocks for a couple days again, I WILL have my real camera with me when I turn them out! I'd give anything for you to have seen all of that. I checked Duke over then to see if he had worn himself out but he was barely breathing hard and wasn't even sweating! Hmmm. Down the road he may well wish he hadn't displayed those capabilities while I was watching!

Mid-week

2012-01-11T09:31:00.001-06:00

It was cold, cold, COLD last night - maybe high 30's. In fact, it's supposed to go down to 27 degrees at night by the end of the week! NOT a "southern" sort of night. But at least all the rain has passed and the horses will be allowed back out to graze. I'm sure THEY will be happy about a sunny 50-ish day. Perfect, as far as they're concerned.

Joey, of course, is at therapy today -- it's Wednesday. But he's also going to be seen by the dermatology group today. He's had a rash ever since his blood donation about a month ago. At first I assumed it was just because there were so many non-routine things happening to him at that point. The blood donation. The company over Christmas. The change in the furniture arrangement in the bedroom. That kind of thing usually brings on a rash, but only temporarily. (Sometimes for just 10 minutes or so!) But although everything has been back to "normal" in his life over the last week or two, the rash has gotten a lot worse. In fact, it's spread over most of his body at this point. Time to call for help. We'll see what they say.

Oh - the annual calendar from the patent attorneys we work with in Taiwan came in the mail this morning. The picture on the calendar this year is of two cranes with a Chinese title printed down the side.

When I looked closely at the calendar, down at the bottom in fine print there's a translation of that title:

"Blessed with longevity like the old pine tree and the cranes."

Hmmm. Didn't realize they knew me THAT well!

Poor Lizzie

2012-01-09T20:11:00.000-06:00

Well, thank goodness Lizzie was NOT down when I got home. Whew. Relief.

Lizzie this afternoon

But, she wasn't exactly normal either. As soon as I got home, I put both of them in their paddocks and closed the gates since it looked like it was about to start raining. Then I went inside to soak their beet pulp and when I went back out, Lizzie wasn't in her stall, as she normally would be, she was just standing there in her paddock looking very strange.

Okay, she's standing. But she sure doesn't look good, does she?

I went ahead and mixed up their feed and hung their feed buckets in their stalls. Duke behaved just as he always does - he started scarfing down his food instantly. But Lizzie? . . . she just kept standing there outside.

I put some alfalfa pellets out for her (she loves those things) and then I went out and talked to her and eventually led her inside. I had put a LOT of oil on those pellets. (Given the amount of oil the vet used when she had colic, I figured it couldn't hurt to put a bunch of it on there.) Once she realized how oily it was, she did go ahead and eat it.

Then I gave her a small amount of regular feed and beet pulp (no shredded alfalfa in there this time) and she ate a little of that, too, but she didn't look all that excited about it.

Somehow Lizzie's face looks . . . strained or something. She looks very tense.

As soon as she got a chance she headed back to the other stall to check for MORE oily alfalfa pellets, but when there weren't any there, she came back to the other stall and finished the regular feed.

It's after 8 now, and I've been going out there checking on her every half hour or so since I got home a little after 4. So far, every time I check, she's just standing there in her stall breathing heavily - sometimes passing a LOT of gas, but always standing and never acting specifically like her stomach hurts.

I guess as long as she's standing up, and as long as I can hear her stomach growling I won't panic.

Now, how many more times I'll need to check on her before I can convince myself that it's okay to go to bed -- now THAT is the $64,000 question. (Yep - I'm old. Anyone else remember that show from the 1950's??)

Anyway . . . back to the barn. I wish I knew more about how to deal with this kind of thing.

Poor Lizzie.

Monday, Monday . . .

2012-01-09T09:21:00.002-06:00

Lizzie scared me to death this morning. I normally feed the horses very early, then I go out right before I leave for work and open up Lizzie's paddock gate so she can join Duke in the back pasture (he rarely gets locked in because he comes in on his own if it rains). And she usually runs right up and follows me to the gate so she can dart out the moment it's opened.

Well, this morning when I got out there Lizzie was laying down in the sand just outside her stall. Okay. I'm sure sand is comfy to lay down on. But when I walked up to her she didn't jump up. She let me kneel next to her and pet her and talk to her. That is NOT Lizzie normally! So I was afraid she was colicing AGAIN!

I went over and opened the gate just to see if she would get up and go out. Well, when she saw Duke out there she did get up -- she was apparently afraid he would be coming in after her. But then she just stood there just outside her gate, not grazing. So I ran back inside to get my phone so I could call the vet, but when I got back outside she had gone on out and was back there grazing. Whew!

I'm still a bit concerned, though. When I checked her feed buckets she hadn't finished her feed or her alfalfa pellets. So I think I'll leave work a little early and go make sure she's okay while there's still time to call the vet before 5 if I need to.

I'll tell you what, losing Bug has made me a nervous wreck anytime I see them lay down! And when they don't jump up when I come over to them . . . At one time that would have made me very happy -- to be able to sit next to them and pet them and talk to them. Now? . . . it just scares me.

Hmmm

2012-01-08T22:28:00.000-06:00

Yesterday Buddy and Lisa planned to exercise both horses. Well, they did, actually -- but not QUITE the way we planned. Turned out Lizzie had no girth that fit her at the moment! (Guess she and I BOTH put on some pounds over the holidays!) Got a nice new "anatomical" girth ordered for her today, though, so next week . . . (shhhh . . . let's not let her know until the time comes).

And while I was looking at girths, I came across a really comfy-looking saddle pad that is actually longer than the side panels on her saddle for a change -- a full 27"! So the end of the cinch should actually fall on top of the pad so her skin will be protected from the end rubbing against her. Finally! It's been darned hard to find one long enough for her Aussie-type saddle.

Anyway - since none of my cinches were long enough to saddle her, I thought she wouldn't be getting any exercise, but no, no no . . . turned out she got to do some exercising anyway! Silly me. I should have known. Buddy just rode her bareback instead! He is so good!

I asked him to just walk her this week since she had coliced a little while back. And he did. But not because Lizzie didn't WANT to take off! Don't know if you can tell from the pictures, but when you see him tightening the reins, it's to keep her from running off. So apparently she feels perfectly healthy again. Great!

Buddy had ridden Duke for a while first, then he turned him over to Lisa who rode him the whole rest of the time. Obviously it WAS his tooth problems that made him so schizy that last time because he behaved just fine this time. He was his normal self. THAT's a relief.

Of course, when everyone was done riding, both horses immediately reverted to their personal selves:

The very first thing Duke wanted to do -- of course -- was EAT! He loves that clover out there in the front yard.

And of course Lisa let him do whatever he wanted to do. (She doesn't spoil him or anything. Oh, no.)

As for Lizzie? Well - she was a lot less concerned with eating than she was with messing herself up again. EVERY time she's given a bath or a good grooming, she cannot WAIT to get away and roll in the dirt! It never fails!

Oh well. I kind of identify with her. It's sort of like me coming home from work and wanting to change into sloppy old clothes immediately. We don't care how we look - we just want to be "comfy." Right, Lizzie?

Great day . . .

2012-01-06T23:16:00.002-06:00

Buddy and Lisa came for an extra day today to spread out that sand we got delivered Tuesday. Sure glad they did -- it wasn't supposed to rain until Sunday according to the weather guy when the sand was delivered. NOW, though, they're saying it's supposed to rain tonight or tomorrow afternoon. Well, we're ready now. We got about half what we THOUGHT we needed. Whew! Glad we decided to do a little at a time because look at this . . . there's so much sand that those paddocks looks like beaches!

There's Lizzie outside the paddock fence pretending she's not disconcerted by the sand.

And of course, the moment the sand was spread in those paddocks, Duke HAD to come settle himself in again.

Lisa said he came up and rolled in the sand when they first spread it, but then he headed back out to graze for the day. But this evening, once it was finished, he came back in and took up a position looking out the door of his stall as though he was absolutely fascinated with the new view!

Lizzie, on the other hand, followed Duke when he came up from the back pasture, but when she got to that gate where the tinest bit of sand had been added, she came to a sudden stop and just stood there for a good half hour, acting as if that sand were a giant "no trespassing" sign or something! She stared in at Duke, and he stared out at her and nobody moved.

I was beginning to wonder if I was going to have to go out and work with her to get her to come in through the sand, but by the time I got their dinners ready, she had gone around and come inside through HER gate (no sand under that gate) and on into her stall to eat - sand or no sand.

Inevitably Duke finishes his dinner FAST, then comes over to the inside gate and stands looking over at Lizzie.

It still makes her a BIT nervous, but she's come to realize that he can't actually get to her so she no longer leaves her stall when he does that.

But he stands there and tries to harrass her. Unlike Ladybug, though, Lizzie doesn't respond.

I just said something to him here and he looked over at me like "WHAT?? Did you bring me a cookie??" (I did.)

Here we go again . . .

2012-01-03T17:32:00.003-06:00

Mark is on his way back out to the rig as we speak (in his OLD car - still no word from the company about that truck he's "SUPPOSED" to be getting),

and I am about to head out to the barn to feed the horses and tidy up the stalls. Duke is well aware that it's time for supper. I let a dog out a couple minutes ago and there he was, standing right outside the back door staring at the house to see if the "chef" was on her way out yet. (Soon, Duke, soon . . . )

When I got home a little while ago, I checked out that sand that was delivered earlier, and I could see right away that there wouldn't be a problem with Duke trying to fool with it. It's very soft and the moment anyone even touches it, it spreads out. No climbing on THAT stuff - even by the cat, I think.

I think I'm going to check with Buddy and see if he'd like to come help spread the stuff out one day this week so that when they come over Saturday they'll have time to fool with horses instead of sand. It's supposed to be dry all week, so the ground should be dry enough to allow riding again this weekend.

I get to start getting up at 5:30 in the morning again starting tomorrow -- oh boy, oh boy. ;-D

But life feels really good again, actually. The weather is gorgeous. The house is tidy - a result of the preparation for holiday company, NOT because I'm neat. And (fingers crossed) everyone here is feeling GOOD! Even me. Excellent.

Oh - and when I opened my calendar to schedule something earlier, I noticed that Daylight Saving Time kicks back in in just two months! Life is good!

Duke and the "Dune" . . .

2012-01-03T10:16:00.002-06:00

Well, Mark just called and to tell me the sand to cover that mud in the paddocks was just delivered. We had decided to have it dumped along the fence between Duke's and Lizzie's paddocks because that's the muddiest spot, and because putting it there would make it easier to spread it out into both paddocks down the road. So that's where the guy put it all right. But now that sand is in a pile a good four feet tall right ON that red steel fence panel, and Mark said Duke is standing there staring intently at it. So I'm just HOPING he doesn't decide to get a running start and try and go OVER the fence via that sand pile! I guess I'll use a heavy steel rake or a shovel tonight when I get home and try and lower that pile at the fence line - at least on Duke's side. I'd hate for him to decide to try and run over that pile, sink down and get a leg caught in that steel panel!

I'll tell you what - if it's not one thing, it's another! Or maybe I just worry too much? (I guess it's "too much" if what I'm worrying about doesn't happen. But if it does? . . . )

What the heck? . . .

2012-01-02T23:17:00.000-06:00

Got ready to post a new blog entry and this program seems to have completely changed. Not sure what the heck is going on. It looks completely different. Hope I didn't accidentally push a wrong button or something! Well -- we'll see if I can still handle it, I guess.

Today was absolutely gorgeous. And Mark got out there and mowed and trimmed the whole front and managed to get the whole place looking just wonderful -- just in time to head back offshore tomorrow afternoon. But before he leaves, he's going to have a truckload of sand delivered and poured around the outside of the barn stalls. We thought those rubber mats and gravel would take care of everything in there. Ha! Not even close! It only rained for a few days last week, and those paddocks turned into an absolute quagmire. So Mark's going to get the sand dumped around the stall doors and the gates, and then this weekend when Buddy and Lisa come by, we can hose down those rubber mats (that are covered with mud now) and put them back on TOP of that sand. It's not supposed to rain between now and the weekend, so we should (fingers crossed) be able to manage that.

And of course while Mark is handling the sand delivery, I'll be back at work. Sigh. It's going to be a LONG time before another holiday comes up. But at least I DO have vacation time available again now. I guess that's something anyway.

Well - time to take that last load of clothes out of the drier and finally get in bed! I am READY.

Duke's itchy belly opening (Be sure and skip this one unless you have a horse!)

2012-01-02T09:15:00.005-06:00

I'm posting these photos for an online vet to check out to see if he can tell me something about that hole in Duke's abdomen.

It was a bit difficult to take a picture AND open that hole but my arm will go in there almost up to my elbow WITH a towel wrapped around it!

Just to see how far back that opening is in the "big picture"

Very difficult to see but the opening is just in front of that piece of wood shaving.

The opening isn't very "open" until you reach into it - but open enough that shavings and bugs DO sometimes get in there.

The opening is right there in that shadowed space DIRECTLY in front of his penis.

Okay! Here's the answer I just got from "Dr Mike," a horse vet at JustAnswer.com:

From Dr Mike Monday, January 02, 2012 10:41 AM EST

The photos show the dorsal preputial orifice. There is a wide individual variation in the depth of the invagination and the diameter of the opening, on a horse Duke's size, it can range from just 4 or so inches wide at the opening, and only go up 8 inches or so, to about twice those dimensions. This opening is the source of the "crouping" sound geldings make as they trot, as air is moved in and out.

Duke may have an unusually expansive and relaxed opening, but I'm not sure I'd call it a genetic anomaly beyond normal individual variation.

The smegma buildup that makes him "itchy" is a normal skin discharge in that area, and you need to walk a fine line between keeping it clean enough to be comfortable, but not so clean that the normal bacterial population is disturbed. The only true infections in this area I've seen were a direct result of too frequent/thorough cleaning.

Dr Mike

Then I asked:

Thanks so much! If it's twice the "normal" size that would definitely explain it. Can you tell me what you suggest I use to clean it so that I won't make it TOO clean, but I can still stop him from kicking himself in the tummy and laying down trying to scratch it against the ground?

And he responded:

I try to use just water. If the buildup is really greasy, I'll use a bit of Ivory dishwashing soap, rinsing well afterwards. Some of the commercial sheath cleaners can be pretty irritating, and a more potent antibacterial product can kill the good bacterial populations.

Excellent! Apparently I've been doing the right thing by accident. I generally just wet a towel with warm water and wipe him out with that. Every six months or so when he gets really antsy, and I'm bathing him with that EZall spray I shoot some of that in there and then rinse it out good. Guess that's been as good a way to deal with it as any. Terrific! Good to know there's nothing actually "wrong" with Duke. Wish Anne would have explained that to me so I wouldn't have had to worry about it all this time. Oh well. I'm just very relieved to know what it is now.

And I have to say, I definitely recommend that JustAnswer.com web site! Thanks, Dr. Mike!

But of course I couldn't just forget about it at that point. I did another online search once I got the correct term from "Dr. Mike" and found this info on the Google Books site. This figure and the following explanation make it even easier to understand exactly what that hole actually is:

I think I'll leave this on here after all instead of deleting it in case someone else is trying to find out what's up with this on their horse.

Lazy, not-very-productive day

2012-01-01T21:46:00.004-06:00

Today was gorgeous - sunny and in the mid-70's. Absolutely lovely. And we did absolutely NOTHING. Well, I DID clean out Lizzie's stalls this morning when I went out to feed the horses - then I parked that cart that Duke was driving around his paddock last night over in one of Lizzie's stalls. Seemed more than appropriate that way anyway since she messes up her stalls continuously and he NEVER does, but more to the point, now he won't be able to throw the thing around and wake me up in the middle of the night!

I say Lizzie's "stalls" (plural) because I've given her access to both HER stall and the stall that belonged to Bug. She never liked to stay in her stall so I thought it might be helpful to let decide for herself where she wants to be. And sure enough - she seems to love to go back and forth between the two, and she does actually stay inside SOMEWHERE when it rains now. Progress. Now if I could just figure out how to get her to "relieve" herself outside as she changes rooms . . .

Oh, well.

I actually spent most of this afternoon checking online to try and find some sort of explanation for the "opening" in Duke's abdomen -- but no luck. I have NO idea what the heck it is - and neither did his vet for that matter. There's a "hole" in his abdomen right in front of his sheath. It's very small and not noticeable when he's just standing there, but it will easily stretch out enough to get my whole hand and half my arm in there when I clean it out! It apparently itches from time to time because he will lay down on his tummy and rub around in the dirt trying to scratch it, then he'll get back up and kick at it. Here's a video I took a year ago - the first time I managed to video it when I saw him do that. I've since learned that when he does that, if I collect him up and bring him inside I can reach up in there with a wet cloth and clean out the white smelly grunge that collects in there and he'll stop carrying on for a while. While I'm cleaning it out, he'll stand very still and kind of stretch his tummy out making it easy for me to get my hand up in there so it obviously feels good to him. At least that means it isn't sore or anything - just itchy. Here he is rolling around on Saturday this week. He's not as bad as he was in that first video because NOW I know what to do to get him to stop that.

I asked his vet about it while she was cleaning out his sheath last spring and although she did wipe that out as well at the time, she said she didn't know what it was or why it was there. I haven't followed up on it with her since everyone else has been sick and Duke seems perfectly healthy. But maybe if Lizzie and Joey stay healthy for a while and I don't have to spend a fortune on anyone I'll ask Anne about doing an X-ray or an ultra-sound to try and figure out what the heck that hole IS. Although after looking on line for so long without finding anything, I think it MUST be some sort of birth defect or genetic defect of some sort, not anything common and not any kind of "disease" or anything.

Just one more Duke idiosyncrasy, I guess. He IS unique.

What a sweet boy!

A handsome guy, huh?

Rocky's stuck at home again at last!

2011-12-31T21:43:00.006-06:00

Mark, Buddy and Lisa spent most of today redoing the wiring along the bottom of the dog yard fence to keep the dogs from digging out. When we originally set up the dog yard, Mark did put wire down there, but the wire used turned out to be too lightweight to be effective for a Catahoula. (We should have known, I guess, after having had Pete!) So Rocky had been getting out lately whenever he took a mind to - more and more often. So I've been having to go out WITH him every time he's out to keep him from escaping. NOT fun when it's raining.

Or freezing.

Or the middle of the night.

But it's good now! They pulled off all that lightweight wire and put down wire fencing that's about as heavy as the commercial chain link fence itself! Excellent! What happened is a roll of 5-foot high heavy wire fencing was cut in half, making two 2-1/2-foot strips with wires sticking out on the cut side. They placed that cut edge up against the bottom of the existing fence and wrapped those wires that were sticking out on the cut edge around that wire on the bottom edge of the upright fence.

I guess it's hard to see how it's attached, but the cut wires are wrapped around that bottom wire on the main chain link fence, then twisted so they can't be pulled away.

So Lisa would bend the strip wires around the fence bottom wire, and Buddy would come along behind her then and twist those wires tight so they can't be pulled away. Then, once the wire strip was secured to the bottom of the fence, they put those concrete stepping stones on top of that wire strip to hold it against the ground so the grass will grow up through it and the wire on the ground will eventually disappear. A really challenging project. I'm sure all three of them are stiff as boards and their backs are killing them from having to bend down there to the ground ALL afternoon to deal with that!

Buddy's twisting those wires to secure them while Lisa takes a break.
Poor Lisa wasn't feeling good today -- again.

Mark and Buddy are just finishing with the long side as the sun begins to set!

But now that the fence is completely secure and I just have to open the door and the dogs can race out through that dog door on the porch and come back whenever they feel like it. And I don't have to decide each time whether to go out with Rocky or wonder continually whether he's out there relieving himself or visiting the neighbors' dogs! Boy do I appreciate all that work everyone did today! That sure simplifies my life! Thanks!

Got a REALLY early start this morning . . .

2011-12-31T08:20:00.002-06:00

Heard a sudden loud thumping early this morning at something like 4:30 or 5 AM while I was sleeping out on the sleeping porch. Sat bolt upright in bed! I was afraid at first that a huge wild dog had come in through that dog door out there that makes a noise when a big dog crashes through it. But then I actually woke up and realized that with 6-foot chain link around the whole back that was highly unlikely.

And besides - the sound kept on. Listening, I could hear that it was coming from the direction of Duke's paddock. Now, when he finishes eating, he DOES pull his feed bucket off the wall bracket and throw it on the ground. And what I was hearing DID sound something like his bucket hitting the wall or the door frame -- except that this sound was way more continuous. What the heck!?

I walked outside then, and what do you know . . . Duke had taken the manure cart that we park under his covered porch and was pulling the thing around his paddock! Too funny! When it's empty and you push it over rough ground, the wheels make a very loud rattling noise. And he was lifting it off the ground and throwing it back down occasionally, too. THAT made a REALLY loud noise! Good grief!

The boy is NOT dumb. He knows that if he makes a lot of noise to complain I'll come out there and give him more hay. Apparently he thought it was easier to just haul that cart around to make a racket than to kick at the chain link fence or call out to me. Well, he's going to have to rethink things yet again, because I'm definitely moving that cart OUT of his paddock from now on!

Poor Wendy . . .

2011-12-30T20:22:00.001-06:00

We ended up spending just a little while down in New Orleans this afternoon because there were SO many people and the traffic was SO crowded and slow, that we were afraid to stay very long for fear we wouldn't make it to the airport in time for Wendy to make her flight. But as it turned out, we got her there a good hour early. AND . . . as if THAT weren't bad enough . . . she called when we were almost back to the house to tell us they had delayed her flight for another two and a half hours! Poor baby! But on the plus side, she did have her laptop and several books with her AND her plane change was switched from Detroit where it was storming to Atlanta. Much less worrisome. Of course it's going to be nearly midnight by the time she makes it all the way home. Oh, my.

Look how cute.
I'm telling you, I'm starting to wonder if she's figured out how that "Dorian Gray" thing works!

I didn't take as many pictures this week as I would have thought I would, but we did take quite a few today. I'm looking forward to getting the ones from Wendy that she took. But in the meantime, here are some of the ones I took.

As I said, New Orleans was PACKED today. Not sure what on earth is going on this weekend -- maybe more folks head down there for New Years than I was aware of. But there sure were a ton of people around for a non-Mardi Gras weekday!

We thought we'd never find a parking space, but eventually we did. Walked around for a little while before we decided we better go to the airport in case it took ages to get out of there. It was a bit bizarre, actually . . .a beautiful, sunny, 75 degree day -- with Christmas decorations still up. Hmmm.

Now THERE is a real New Orleans-style Christmas wreath!

Very nice, huh?

No horses pulling the carriages in New Orleans anymore - a couple of them did die from the heat one summer so maybe they outlawed the use of horses - not sure.

There were actually THREE pit bulls hanging out on that balcony. And none of them ever barked at anyone or anything -- they just seemed to enjoy watching folks walk by under them! (If any of our dogs were out there they'd have not only barked their heads off, but at least two would have gone over that railing after someone in no time!)

Those red Christmas lights look for the world like flowers, don't they? Love them!

Now THAT's an "interesting" paint job, isn't it!

I'll tell you what - it's been down in the 20's here in the Baton Rouge area a couple nights already this year and our ferns have turned brown and the trees have all lost their leaves. But New Orleans - only an hour away? Apparently that hasn't happened there. Everything still looks lush and lovely down there.

This carriage said "just married" on the back.

All the "secret" garages down there in the Quarter fascinate me.

Look at all those vines and plants that still look like summer!

Wendy and Mark -- look how cute. (And look at the shape of that tree! Love it!)

When we were almost home, we made a turn down our road in the opposite direction and went down to our old property on the other end of the road to take some pictures of the house that's being built there now. We meant to go by there with Wendy but forgot to do it, so . . . Wen, here's that new house I was telling you about:

They're building very close to that very old (more than 150 year old) live oak. The property is three acres. When we owned it, it was very wooded in back. Now they've cleared out the wooded area and the neighbor's stables are very visible now there just to the left.

Here's the view from the road that runs down the side of the property. Nice, huh?

And here's how it looks from the back. I love that it's going to look like an old house from the start!

Then as we drove back down the road to our house, I took these pictures of some metal sculptures one of the neighbors does. He's always changing out the ones he's got sitting in his front yard! And they're always fascinating. And HUGE. (I keep meaning to stop and see if he ever does horse sculptures -- and for how much -- but I haven't gotten around to that so far.

These things are enormous.
This one is probably a good 10 feet tall.

Okay! That's about it for today. Hope Wendy gets home soon!

Looking forward to a nice looooong weekend.

Another nice dinner --

2011-12-29T21:26:00.000-06:00

Had to work all day in order to be able to take off tomorrow and go down to New Orleans with Wendy before she heads back to Ohio, but once I got home we went over to Roberto's River Road Restaurant for dinner and it was wonderful! The place doesn't LOOK wonderful -- an old 1850's house that apparently hasn't EVER been repaired. But the food there is nothing short of amazing.

Fantastic dinners two nights in a row -- can't argue with that! Not sure what we'll end up eating in N.O. tomorrow, but I'm sure it'll also be good. I'm really going to need to cut back after the new year begins . . . really, really, REALLY need to!

Nice week - but back to work now

2011-12-28T22:23:00.002-06:00

Wendy and I drove out to Janet and Mike's place to visit with their horses today, then the three of us headed down to Perkins Rowe to shop for a while. Mark and Mike joined us later for dinner at Texas de Brazil (my current favorite restaurant). VERY nice. And as usual when I eat there, I am absolutely "STUFFED" now.

Gotta go back to work tomorrow. Wish I had a few more vacation days since Wendy is here all this week. She'd like to go down to New Orleans on Friday before her plane takes off, so I'm going to try to get in enough time tomorrow to take off early enough Friday to do that. Guess whether we can do that will depend on what I might need to file by the end of the week. I'll check on that tomorrow.

Right now -- time for BED.

Good night, everyone.

And life goes on -- "normally"

2011-12-27T18:16:00.001-06:00

Got that second spinal injection today.

Wendy waiting to go along to the Surgical Center

At least this time I wasn't afraid like I was the first time. And the proceeding takes just a little while. The longest thing is waiting to be brought back to the prep room!

And when they DO take you back to the prep room, your family gets to go with you.

Once you get into the room where they do the injection, it only takes about 10 minutes! Very easy.

Got a bit worried for a while there because, although my legs hurt much less, they seemed to be a lot weaker! If I tried to step up or down, my right one would feel like it was about to give out. Scary. But I took a nice loooong nap this afternoon and when I got up I felt just fine, just as I expected to. Yeaaaaaaa!!

2011 Christmas past

2011-12-26T21:54:00.004-06:00

Wendy flew into New Orleans on Saturday afternoon, then yesterday (Christmas day) we drove over to Opelousas to visit Mark's sister Judy and her family for Christmas. I wasn't feeling all that great, but it was still nice. Then today Mark's other sister Vickie and her husband John who had come down from DC last weekend flew back to DC. John needed to go back to work, and Vickie had a meeting tomorrow in, I think, Florida. Whew! Lots of running around. But it sure was nice to see all the folks we usually get to see only once or twice a year!

Mark and Vickie

Mark's two sisters, Vickie and Judy

Mark and his niece Christine

Vickie and John were on vacation over in the Netherlands this year, so Vickie bought Christine's girls Dutch clogs and a couple of those cute little Dutch hats with the braids. The girls weren't there yesterday, so Vickie was showing Christine the presents!

My gorgeous daughter!

Wendy obviously finds this group "amusing" ;-D

Vickie relaxing!

I'll tell you what - Christine cooked a lot of different food there at her Mom's house, and the rest of us ALL brought still more things to eat. Whew! It's a wonder we managed to drive back home without falling asleep in the car! Talk about "stuffed" !!

(No idea what the deal was with that "made in Texas" box !!)

It was a very lovely day.

Me and my honey

And tomorrow I will FINALLY get that second spinal injection! I want to believe that's all I'm EVER going to need, but regardless, I'm sure I'll feel a LOT better for the foreseeable future. Can't WAIT!

Productive Friday

2011-12-23T20:10:00.003-06:00

Well, the first thing Mark and John did this morning was replace the fence between between Duke's and Lizzie's paddocks. Originally, it was this 5-wire fence. Normally, that would be more than sufficient since it would ordinarily be electrified. But because it's between the paddocks and not connected to the majority of the wire fence, it can't be electrified. So . . .

as soon as Duke would finish eating, he'd try to get over to Lizzie's stall and check out her buckets to see if there were any "leftovers." So he would kick or bite at the wires and by the time Mark came home this time, that 5-wire fence was down to only two! So Mark and John removed all those wires and instead hooked two heavy steel panels to those fence posts. They dragged those panels from where they've been stored outside the cottage in back and up into the paddock with the van. Not easy. We bought all those panels a couple years ago from a welder who had made them himself out of extremely heavy steel. They were going to be a round pen, but I think we're going to use them all in places where the fencing is "iffy" instead. Anyway, now that those first two are in place between the paddocks, Lizzie can be certain that her ENTIRE meals will remain her own!

Those red panels may LOOK light, but it takes at LEAST three people to lift one. Getting them onto a flat bed to haul home back when we bought them was a serious challenge!

And as you can see, while they were at it, they also moved the HayHut up from the back pasture and put that between the two paddocks, as well. That way if the ground stays soggy, we'll be able to keep them both in their paddocks to keep them from trampling the grass in the pasture and they'll still have plenty to eat.

So now as soon as Mark gets something to put on the ground inside it to keep the hay up off the ground, we'll put a round bale in there so they will never run out of hay through the winter. I think we'll also be putting rubber mats outside the HayHut. If it rains for more than a day or so at a time, the paddocks will probably turn into a muddy mess. And since we won't be able to just move the HayHut anymore when it gets muddy around it, we'll need to do something to keep the horses from sinking up to their knees in mud to get to the hay! Always something, huh?

Buddy and Lisa came over today instead of on Saturday and worked like crazy all through this cold, miserable day. Buddy brought his power washer and cleaned the house AND the back patio (his idea - what a sweetie). I knew that patio was a "bit" grubby, but I had absolutely no idea just HOW filthy it really was! LOOK at this!! Yuk!!

I'll tell you - it looks just wonderful now -- and it'll probably be a lot healthier place to eat again now too come spring!

Oh, and they brought me a really wonderful present, too -- a huge picture of Ladybug. It's hanging here in my office now.

It was VERY hard to get a picture without reflections - but it's wonderful in "real life"

I miss her so so much. Lizzie is a very comfy ride, but her personality doesn't begin to compare with Bug's. She doesn't seem to have much of a personality, actually. But maybe over time it'll come to the surface. Looking back, it did take a good year for me to get really close to Bug, so I guess there's some hope. And I really hadn't tried that hard to get close to Lizzie when Bug was alive, so maybe down the road . . .

But even if we do get closer, I don't think I'll ever love Lizzie the way I loved Bug. I really did adore her.

And the holiday begins!

2011-12-22T11:29:00.003-06:00

The firm shuts down at noon today until Tuesday so I'm almost ready to head out. I'm waiting for a several-hundred-page European publication to download, then I'm done for the day . . . er, week! (I won't be back until NEXT Thursday since I'm having that spinal injection next Tuesday.)

Janet and Mike, brother-in-law John, his brother and Mark and I are all getting together at the centrally-located Acme Oyster House at noon. Vickie drove over to Lafayette, I think it was, to visit with a friend so she'll be missing. But since Janet and Mike are going to be down on the coast of Mississippi with Janet's parents from tomorrow until Monday, today was our only option for getting together with them before John and Vickie leave on Monday. I'm sure we'll be getting together with Janet and Mike again once Wendy is here, but that will probably be at their house so Wendy can meet all the horses they didn't have last time she was down. AND see all the updates they've made (and are making) to their house! I'm looking forward to that too! They're making major changes to their master suite that I haven't seen yet myself.

Wish we could say the same! Poor Mark STILL doesn't have his separate master bath. He decided to pull everything out of his bathroom months ago when there was a problem with the floor. Now he needs a new vanity, a new toilet and new flooring in his bath. (The shared shower is between our baths and that is still in perfect working order.) So it really isn't going to take much to put his bath back in place since everything is already plumbed and the subfloor has been replaced. So we just need to put down tile on his floor and connect up a new toilet and a new vanity/sink. Not a big deal. But he wants to handle it himself and he's been busy working on the barn so . . . no bathroom for him yet. Oh well. It's not like it's all that much of a problem for him to use one somewhere else in the house until he gets around to re-doing it, I guess. And Christmas time with a house full of guests is no doubt NOT a good time to bring it up "again."
;-D

Hey - forget about all that. Time to go eat and visit and enjoy!

I'm wearing out

2011-12-21T11:16:00.002-06:00

This day is NOT going well. For starters, when I walked Joey out of the garage to go to the bathroom before putting him in the truck to take him to therapy this morning, he tripped me and I crashed into a puddle in the middle of the driveway. Muddied up my nice pale green corduroy pants and soaked my jacket. Had to go in and change clothes and ended leaving my cell phone in the pocket of that wet jacket so I have no phone today. BAD feeling.

And THEN, when I got to work, I found that the source of the data I use for drafting ALL my documents is no longer working correctly. The data is all in a program called Multi Block Storage. It contains the data for every application filed over the last five years! That's just a small part of the data list shown below. And each one of those files in the list below contains dozens of bits of information like the patent application serial number, title, filing date, priority applications, inventor names, home addresses, citizenships, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, etc. etc. etc. A LOT of info usually at my finger tips. So what does it mean if the program doesn't work? It means I have to get up and go get the actual FILE out of the file room in order to get the info to complete the new documents. Grrrrrr. After five years or more of NOT having to do that, I am completely spoiled!

The program was created by a Russian guy named Igor Vershynin. I've e-mailed him a lengthy explanation of what it's doing and NOT doing and I am praying that he will be able to figure it out SOON because none of our IT people seem to have a clue. (Actually, since I'm the only person in the firm who uses that program, they probably aren't all that interested -- they have plenty of other people to help with all kinds of things since all the software in the entire firm has been updated to new versions on all our brand new computers! So I can't really blame them for not wanting to deal with some oddball program . . . BUT I NEED IT!!!)

And although Mark is on his way home finally, he's not having much of a day himself. They woke him up before 2 AM on the rig to tell him that "the boat will be here in an hour or so" but they didn't actually get off the rig until after 4 AM so he got next to NO sleep last night and he is NOT cheery this morning. And since his sister and her husband are at the house, he no doubt won't get to go to sleep right away when he gets home, either.

Oh well -- tomorrow is another day. And I get off work at noon tomorrow and don't have to go back for a week. Excellent timing! And if I don't feel a LOT better by next week, I'll have another month of vacation available after January 1. Something to look forward to!

Tuesday night before Christmas

2011-12-20T22:26:00.001-06:00

Mark will finally be getting home tomorrow! Seems like he's been gone for MONTHS this time. Every time he goes to work I hate it more. I seem to be becoming a different person somehow. I used to love being alone. When we got married I was glad Mark worked offshore so that we would only be married HALF the time - and I'd have the personal solitude I was used to the other half of the time. But not anymore. I'm really looking forward to his retirement. The only problem with that is that if either of us (let alone both of us) were to retire, we'd have to change our way of life because we wouldn't be able to afford half the stuff we spend money on these days - like horses, for instance. And dogs. And cats. (Well, not so much cats, actually - they're pretty healthy and independent compared to the rest of the crew).

But I'll tell you what, I have loved change just for the sake of change all my life. My time limit max on jobs was about five years. No personal relationship lasted longer than that either until Mark. But I have seriously changed now - I have absolutely NO desire to change a darned thing anymore. Maybe Joey's mental state is contagious! Or maybe it's an aging thing.

Or maybe it's just Christmas that's affecting me. For some reason, Christmas depresses me more each year. But Wendy will be down this year, so that's a happy thing! Can't wait. I so wish we lived closer together . . . but somewhere warm. I don't think I could begin to deal with Ohio weather anymore at this point. Not that our weather is all that great at the moment -- it is POURING down rain. So I guess I'll head for bed and hope that I'm cheerier in the morning. We'll see.

Tired, tired, TIRED!

2011-12-18T20:45:00.002-06:00

I have been cleaning out our office all weekend. I started Friday evening after Lisa and I finished straightening up the house, then again last evening, and today I've been at it again ALL day long! Whew! I bought a new (clean) trash can and brought it up here to collect up all the old papers. When I get done, I'm just going to haul it out to the garage and just leave it in there until Mark gets around to burning all those papers. I don't want to send all those private papers out to the dump. And I SURE didn't want to spend the next month running them all through the shredder. I'll tell you what -- I hope it occurs to me to update those files a lot sooner than every 6 years next time! This has been ridiculous! Only three of the SIX file cabinets in here have been cleaned out and that 55-gallon trash can is darned near FULL.

Oh - and just to make my day really lovely, I've been having to tromp up and down the stairs to take Joey out because I bought the dogs all some really enormous bones for presents, but I gave them to them on Saturday so they wouldn't mess up our company with sticky bones. Well, Boo licked his off for a while, then carefully buried it in his dog bed. Rocky chewed on his for a while until it cracked in half, then he went to bed and just let it lay there on the floor. But Joey? . . . Joey pretty much ate the entire (HUGE) bone! That was worrisome enough when I realized it last night, but TODAY he's had the runs all day long. Sigh. Don't know what they'll get for presents next year, but it will NOT be giant bones. At least Joey's won't, that's for darned sure!

Oh - and when I took Joey out to the bathroom for about the 10th time this afternoon, I saw Duke out in the pasture rolling back and forth over and over and OVER! Scared the crap out of me! Having had two horses with colic in a single month, I'm not kidding -- it absolutely horrified me! So I raced back upstairs to get my camera -- I planned to take a video to e-mail to his vet -- but by the time I found the camera and got back out there he was casually strolling around the pasture, grazing perfectly normally. And I was a complete basket case both from his terrifying me AND from racing up and down those stairs! Mark - PLEASE come home. I need you!

But I have to say, I was a lot happier to come back up here and go back to cleaning the office after I got over that. Dealing with this mess is waaaaay better than hauling Duke to the Vet Hospital!

And at this point (now it's after 8 PM) I AM finished clearing off the TOPS of both our desks anyway. Maybe when Vickie and John come home tonight John can bring Mark's new computer upstairs for me. Then I'll be able to set it up and install all the software on it this week before Mark comes home. I'm not going to disconnect his old computer until I'm sure everything is set up the way he wants it. But at least everything will be in place and he can start using it right away. We never transfer anything over to begin with. Once he decides he likes the new computer, we'll just remove the hard drive from the old one and hook it up to the new one so he can copy what he wants directly. (The hard drive on the new one is 1 Terrabyte - should be plenty of room for a looong time.)

I sure hope he likes the thing! But even if he hates the computer, I'm sure he'll love the fact that the office will be tidy for the first time in (literally) YEARS!

Looooong day --

2011-12-16T21:42:00.000-06:00

Finally got away from work today about quarter after 2 - much later than I planned. I wanted to get home by the time Buddy and Lisa got done with the barn and pasture. But even that late was pretty much okay today since they didn't get here as early as usual. Their poor little Chihuahua was attacked by a neighbor's boxer. Poor baby. Her son took the poor little thing to the vet, but it didn't survive. Lisa got a call from him mid-afternoon to tell her the dog had died and of course she was devastated. I can't believe they didn't just decide to leave, but she said it would be worse to be at home with nothing to do but think about it, so she stayed the rest of the afternoon and helped me with everything.

We moved all the furniture around in the living room. I had it set up before so that there were just two seats in front of the TV and that big sectional sofa was over in front of the fireplace instead. Now? . . . EVERYTHING is in front of the TV and only the desk is over by the fireplace because given a choice this month I think everyone is going to choose to look at the TV and not the fire. (Hey - it's been in the upper 70's lately so . . . WHAT fire?)

(Plenty of horse magazines, right?)

It doesn't LOOK all that great, but everyone who's here for the holidays will be able to sit together in either the living room OR the dining room. That should be good.

I finally got around to feeding the dogs just a few minutes ago. Poor Joey. He's had NO attention all afternoon. I didn't even take the time to help him cover up with his "blankie." He did the best he could to cover himself up, but he wasn't all that effective, was he? (And he obviously doesn't feel secure enough to actually be sleeping.)

He may LOOK comfortable above, but below is how he REALLY sleeps:

Each evening I ask if he wants his blanket and he RACES over to his bed and I cover him up except his head, and then he wiggles around and gets his head underneath the cover as well and he's out for the night.

First thing tomorrow morning (well, second thing -- right after I feed the horses) Boo is going to the groomer so that for at least a week he won't be shedding all over the place. Then on the way back I'm going to stop at the feed store for horse feed and hope I make it home without getting stuck anywhere!

Check out these pictures I took while trying to get out of the mall when I went over there to buy some dog food LAST weekend (and this weekend is probably worse, given how near we are to Christmas).

This may LOOK like a regular road, but it's actually just the outer road on the inside of the mall.

And this is also still inside the mall -- taken a good 45 minutes later than the one above! Darned good thing I had a book on CD to listen to or I might have been DANGEROUS by that point!

And here we are ALMOST to the point of escape onto the actual road! (NEVER again!)

Hmm. Just thinking about last weekend makes me wish I didn't even have to leave the house for ANY reason. But hey - I have to go to the grocery anyway. I cleaned out the refrigerator today and it is virtually empty at this point. (Most of the stuff in there had an expiration date at LEAST six months ago!! Definitely time for some refills.)

Okay, time to hit the sack so I can get up early - just like I do when I go to work. Guess my weekend won't really begin until Vickie and John come in tomorrow afternoon. Then we'll all sit around and relax! Sigh.

We're FAMOUS!

2011-12-15T19:56:00.000-06:00

Mark’s company finally got around to informing the other employees today that Mark won that car in their lifestyle health improvement contest -- it was announced in their monthly journal. Check it out:

In that picture, we were standing next to my Honda Ridgeline a couple months ago, but it almost looks like we're next to the Expedition, doesn't it? (They apparently both have those sun things over the side windows - although the Expedition doesn't have a divider between the front and rear windows like my truck does.)

I know that giant SUV will probably only get about 12 miles to a gallon but I'm still going to love it! The first thing I’m going to do is buy Mark one of those interior liners for the back of it so he can pick up the same kinds of things we always have to get with my truck now - without glopping up the carpeting in there.

And the SECOND thing I want (but maybe not right now) is one of those dog barriers so we can take the dogs places in it without having to worry about keeping them out of the front seats.

We won't actually get it, though, until Mark goes over to Houston after he gets home next week. I can't WAIT!

Okay. Time to get back to straightening things up around here enough that we can actually see the floors and table tops so they can get cleaned up tomorrow. I'll tell you what, it's a darned good thing we get company a few times a year or this place would be condemned! I am NOT a tidy person!

New computer at last!

2011-12-15T10:10:00.005-06:00

That's "IT" -- the computer is inside the monitor so that's ALL there is!

Came in to work early again today to see about my computer and yeaaa! . . . I finally got the new one here at the office and it is GREAT! I'll have to give major points to Damian, the head of our IT department. This is the first time I have EVER had my computer changed out without MAJOR problems. I had it working as well as ever by the time I would normally have come in to work this morning. Relief!

We've sure come a loooong way since those huge CRT monitors, haven't we?
(I think this was taken in 2007.)

It IS going to take me a bit of time to get really used to everything again since Damian upgraded every last piece of software I have -- and I have a LOT of it! But I was still able to get on with my work without too much distress. Love it!

Having progressively more trouble getting around again. Sure glad that second spinal injection is scheduled for SOON.

I'm glad I've got some extra hours in this week because it'll give me a chance to go home early tomorrow. Buddy and Lisa will be over in the morning and once they're done with the horses they're going to try to get the house ready for company for me. So I need to get home as soon as possible since I'm sure Lisa's going to wonder what the heck to do with all the stuff that's laying around all over the place. It won't be fun for her, I'm sure! I'm really grateful that she said she'd take care of it, though, so I didn't have to hire someone I didn't know from Adam. It's good to have people you really like and trust come help you when you need them. I'm so grateful to have found them!

I've been enjoying seeing the results of that "inner animal" quiz on Facebook. It really is amazing that such a short quiz can come up with some fairly accurate descriptions of everyone from what I've been able to tell. Check out this quiz by the World Wildlife Federation -- fun! (My "inner animal" is a Sumatran Rhino! As I noted on FB, we ARE built similarly. ;-D)

Oh - and Joey did his blood donation last Monday. Looks like his veins must be a bit hard to find - his neck was shaved on both sides. They said he was a little antsy, but after all it was the first time. Joey isn't comfy with ANYTHING the first time. But he got Science Diet and he will get meds for heart worms and fleas, and vaccinations, and blood work of all sorts - all free in exchange for his donations. So that's a good thing. And I'm really glad professionals will be keeping an eye on Joey regularly for the next 6 years -- he's so peculiar in so may ways that I'm really happy that's going to be the case!

Well - better get back to work on my NEW computer. ;-D

Monday, Monday

2011-12-12T13:08:00.002-06:00

Been checked out for a while since my computer crashed Friday night. I thought I was going to have to move it out to another room and I wasn't looking forward to that with the thing down, but as it turned out, that wasn't necessary.

Talked to Wendy Saturday morning and found out that we will only have TWO sets of guests at any one time this month. And why is that good news? Well, it isn't, actually, but on the other hand, now I won't have to move our office, and that IS a relief. I can't physically move the furniture myself, and Buddy's back isn't in good shape either. Truthfully, I think his back may be in worse condition than mine! And second, since my computer crashed on Friday, if I had moved everything out of the office before restoring it, I wouldn't have been able to tell whether I had things plugged back in correctly or not -- it's hard enough to hook everything up when everything IS working!

As a matter of fact, I spent most of the weekend restoring the computer. Fortunately, when you get a computer with Windows 7, you can record disks that will return the disk to the original format. I tried first to just replace parts of it, but nothing worked and in the end, I DID have to go all the way back to the original disk set-up, i.e. NO personal info left on there any longer. Fortunately, I do have not just one but TWO online backups. One would think that it would be extremely simple to replace the missing files in that case, but in fact, it's not. I didn't want to replace all the programs because I had just ordered new software - MS Office 2010 AND WordPerfect X5. So I just wanted to download the related files. Fortunately, most of my files are stored on an external drive, NOT on the "C" drive, but there were some that I needed to replace. Let me just say that the Mozy online backup is useless for that. Since they were the outfit that I've had saving my data for several years, I went there first and tried to replace my missing data until about 3 AM Saturday morning, but never managed to get it done. So I went over to MyPC.com -- the company I enlisted just a couple weeks ago. I was planning to switch to them because you can access documents from anywhere from them and even allow others to access things. I haven't tried that yet, but I had no trouble downloading the docs I needed from them. So Mozy is history from now on!

I definitely recommend MyPCbackup.com for online backup instead of Mozy. No doubt about it. For one thing, MyPCbackup.com will store ANY amount of data for one reasonable price, and second, when you go to the website and look at your data, it's arranged just as it is on your computer so you can actually FIND anything you need to replace. You have to notify Mozy that you need a backup and they send you a file key to allow you to download "ONE" document containing everything. And it takes forever to do it. The only way you can see the individual files is to have them send them to you on DVD . . . for a "mere" $170!! NO THANKS! Soooo glad I had signed up for MyPCbackup.com when I did!!

So other than dealing with my computer, there's really very little I will HAVE to do before company comes next weekend. Thankfully, Lisa is going to come help me clean the whole place on Friday before Vickie and John get here Saturday.

As for this weekend, while they were here Saturday, Buddy ran that leaf vacuum all afternoon and REALLY cleared up the pasture. Now the leaves are all gone, the grass back there is visible again, and the horses will actually be able to graze safely again.

Oh - and speaking of "grazing safely," he also cut all those bushes along the front fence line all the way to the ground so Duke won't be eating holly (and stretching out that fence while he does it) anymore. And by the time they grow back (and this is Louisiana -- they WILL grow back), Mark will have moved that fence back far enough that Duke can't reach them anymore.

So the place is in pretty good shape now. I really enjoy seeing the horses out grazing in the pasture again now.

Oh - on Saturday I went over to Petsmart to pick up some dog food. Now I did notice that there was all kinds of traffic out there, but I drove in and parked near the store without much trouble, and it only took about 20 minutes to get the dog food and get ready to head home. Ha! THAT is when it got complicated. It took well over an HOUR just to get out of the mall parking lot!!! I could not BELIEVE it!! I'll tell you what - I will NOT be going out to buy anything until at least February! If I need something, it's going to be coming from Amazon via UPS, and NOT from the mall!!

Today when I came in to work I expected to have the new computer in place but nope -- not yet. I'm told it will happen tonight. I hope so. When I bought that new Office 2010, they e-mailed me a code so I could download it without waiting on the disks to arrive so I've been using it at home since yesterday. Have to say, I have always HATED Word, but the new one isn't bad. In fact, I actually LIKE it. I'm really looking forward to having it on my office computer. I do prefer WordPerfect and use that for documents I originate, but I have to use Word for documents we get from inventors over at LSU since that's what they use and it tends to screw the documents up when you convert them back and forth. So I'll be happy to have that new version here soon.

I hope.

Well, today's short lunch is over so I better get back to work.

Tomorrow will be a nice looong lunch - the Paralegal Association Christmas luncheon. Looking forward to that one!

Still Friday ...

2011-12-09T18:24:00.001-06:00

Left work a bit early this afternoon - they were about to replace my computer with a new one at the office. Until now, they have always set up a new computer in the computer offices, then I would go over and make sure the thing was working correctly and THEN they would install it in my office. But not this time. Oh, no. This time the head of the computer department is setting it up himself and he says I should trust that there will be no problems. Oh - and he's upgrading the docket program at the same time -- something that has also inevitably caused problems in the past. But I need to trust him.

Right.

We'll see on Monday if that's true, I suppose. Anyone want to put money on that???

Well - at least it was a reason to leave early today. That works.

When I picked up Joey this afternoon, I saw that he hadn't donated blood today after all -- no shaved spot on his neck. So I asked around and they told me that he would be donating on Monday instead (because they had another donor today, I think). I guess they probably decided to keep the other donor and put Joey off until next week since he'll be over there then anyway.

Oh - the surgery people called this afternoon, too -- my next spinal injection is going to be December 27 - the day after Vickie and John go back to DC. Not sure if Wendy will be down here then or not, but I can't put it off until after the first of the year since I won't be allowed to drive myself and Mark will be going back to work right after New Years. Well, if she IS here, it'll give us more time to hang out anyway.

Okay, time to get back to cleaning out those dadburned file cabinets!

It's FRIDAY !!

2011-12-09T08:40:00.001-06:00

When I dropped Joey off at therapy this morning, Jennifer told me he's going to be a blood donor for the first time today. I was happy to hear that - not because of the actual donation (although it's good to think that he'll be helping save another dog), but because of the detailed blood tests he'll get to have each time he donates and more REALLY detailed tests once a year. I think, if I remember correctly, they will also be giving him his vaccinations -- so they can be sure he getting what he's supposed to get, presumably. ;-D

At least I think that's what Torri told me when I adopted Boo. (Boo was a donor there at LSU until he turned 8 last year. )

Well, I better get back to work.

Later . . .

Progress?

2011-12-08T18:44:00.001-06:00

Just came from my visit to that spinal specialist. They took still MORE x-rays (I should be glowing at this point!), then he showed me on the x-rays - and on that MRI I had last month - that there is a cyst inside my spine that is pressing on the nerves near the bottom of my spine and causing the pain I've been having. BUT . . . I'll be having another spinal injection to get rid of the rest of the pain and I should be fine at least for the time being. When I asked if surgery would eventually be inevitable, though, he said "no." It's possible that these injections will do the job indefinitely. That's great because those injections are no problem whatsoever (except for money, of course). But they don't hurt and they don't take long at all and they won't require any time off except maybe the following day (if that - they told me to stay home the next day that last time, but I actually felt just fine that day). So anyway -- the spinal specialist is going to set me up with the surgery department and they're supposed to get back to me about when to have it done. Hope it's very soon!

It's been incredibly cold down here lately -- probably 20 degrees below normal for this time of year. But it gets up into the 50's and 60's in the day. So what I've been doing is putting the horses' blankets on them at night, then taking them back off in the morning. Kind of a pain. But on the other hand, if I DIDN'T put their blankets on, I probably wouldn't be able to sleep thinking about them standing out there freezing to death -- well, Lizzie anyway since she's not supposed to have a large amount of hay anymore, so how the heck would she stay warm???

Well, instead of playing online, I guess I should be cleaning out the file cabinets in here right now. Buddy and Lisa will be helping me move all this office stuff out of here and into the central library room on Saturday and I want to have those file cabinets cleared out by then. For one thing, it'll be easier to move the things. And for another, I'm going to need Buddy to help me get all that heavy paperwork down the stairs! What I'd REALLY like to do is burn the stuff -- there's lots of financial info and personal stuff. Wonder if there's anywhere that would be safe to do that? Where we used to have a "burn pile" is now in the middle of the pasture - NOT an option anymore. Maybe I should get a metal trash can and burn it in there. Wonder if it would burn inside something that enclosed or if it would have to have holes in the side somehow? Hmmm. I'll have to ask Mark about that.

Well anyway, I guess I better get to work. It's Thursday already. Only one more day to deal with all this before time to move everything. (So enjoy your night. You probably don't need to do anything this evening, right?)

And another week begins . . .

2011-12-05T09:50:00.007-06:00

It feels like it was a long weekend since I had to leave work at 2:30 Friday when Lizzie got sick. But even though it wasn't actually, I feel like we made a lot of progress on a lot of things. Besides the things I already talked about, instead of renting a lawn vacuum, we went over to Sears yesterday and bought one on sale that you pull behind the lawn tractor. Of course it only holds something like 18 bushels, so in a space as large as ours, you have to go empty the thing DOZENS of times, but it DOES pick up all those leaves nicely so the horses can graze without scarfing down leaves.

It was about to storm yesterday, but Mark did get time to vacuum Lizzie's and Bug's paddocks so Lizzie can graze in there safely, then he did a little of the back pasture as well. Maybe Buddy can finish that up later since it's going to be raining off and on until Mark goes back to work and you can't vacuum up wet leaves. We're also going to get Lizzie some corn oil and I'm going to feed her alfalfa pellets with oil on them (instead of hay) and see if that helps her digestion.

I'll tell you what, if we ever get another horse, it WILL be a young horse who's in perfect health. I used to think I would like to adopt a rescue horse, but I just don't think I can handle what it takes to get them back to health any more, given my own health at the moment. And unlike older horses (more than 18, that is), young horses are also insurable -- a very good thing.

Mark will be heading back to work tomorrow evening, so I'm very grateful that Buddy and Lisa are around now to help me if anything happens -- or even if it doesn't! (Maybe we should just adopt those two!)

We will be getting ready for Christmas guests over the next couple weekends. Our company will be getting here before Mark gets home, and the day after he does get home he'll be flying over to Houston to pick up that company SUV he won. So he won't be around to help with anything after tomorrow.

I'm trying to decide in the meantime what to do about beds. I need to move SOMETHING up to that third guest room - but I'm not sure what.

Mark and I both hate the mattress we have on our king-size bed in the master. I'm so bad about ordering things online. I ordered that thing online and it ended up being something we both hated but then could not return. (Live and learn.) I thought about donating it, but instead you know what I think I might do with the thing? . . . Since it's layers of various types of foam, I think I might cut it up and use it to pad ALL the various dog beds and crates. The thing is a good 15 or 18" thick so if the thickness were cut in half that would make 84 square feet of padding! . . . MORE than enough to fill in every last pet bed we've got -- and more. Mark may not think much of that idea though . . . we'll have to see.

Anyway, whatever we do with the thing, I want to get a different mattress for me (one that I can try out first this time!), but I'm thinking it might be good to get TWO double or queen size beds instead of that king, and put the king bed up in that third guest room. That way I can get my natural latex mattress without feeling guilty because that's NOT what Mark wants, and Mark will be able to get whatever he wants and that would no longer be an issue for me -- excellent plan, huh?! Except that Mark built a platform for the king bed and it weighs a TON! (probably literally!) Not sure if it would be possible to get the thing upstairs.

Anyway, I'll have to do some measuring to see what sizes would fit well in there. Since we added that gigantic closet that now contains the chest of drawers, we have an essentially empty 12 X 18 room, so I think either size would probably fit fine. With two beds, it would probably end up looking like a motel room, but what-the-heck . . . we'd be comfy. The only other large thing we need space for in there is Joey's 4 1/2 foot long by 4 foot high crate. But I guess if we needed to, we could always put that in some other room. Hmm! That might be a good thing anyway since he invariably starts carrying on at 6 AM every day! If we moved his crate I wouldn't have to get up at 6 AM on the weekends anymore. Hey! . . . now THAT's a GREAT idea!!

Weekend

2011-12-04T09:59:00.001-06:00

I'm not doing much at all today, and I REALLY hope Buddy and Lisa are relaxing at home today as well. They sure deserve to kick back a lot more than I do, that's for sure!

On Friday, Buddy ran a trencher from the main water line in the middle of the front yard clear across the yard and back to the paddock fence line, then over to the interior barn wall, then another trench directly from the barn to the house for an underground electric line. And the last 6 feet on both ends of both trenches had to be dug with a shovel because the trencher wouldn't get any closer to a wall. Running the trencher was bad enough, but digging with a shovel? . . . yuk!

Then on Saturday, Mark and Buddy put in the water line and ran the underground electric wire, then Buddy filled all those trenches back in again. Looooong day.

This is looking from the main water line over to the barn - AFTER if got filled in again.

The water line runs under the gate and then over to the barn. The electric line runs in front of the fence.

That whole last 6 feet or so had to be dug by hand because the trencher wouldn't get near enough to the wall.

Poor Buddy - here he is just finishing up filling in the trench.
He looks like it's a darned good thing he's done!

Like I said - I SURE hope he has nothing whatsoever to do all day today!

And while Buddy was dealing with the trenches, Lisa was dealing with my filthy house.
She even changed out all the pot lights for me. MUCH better!

As for me, I am doing absolutely nothing today except checking on Lizzie now and then. She seems to be completely back to normal, thank goodness! But I still feel like I need to go look regularly.

And Duke, of course, is fine -- despite that poison ivy and those tree branches he had as snacks yesterday.

Kitty Condo

2011-12-03T11:29:00.000-06:00

All our cats (except the "Garage Cat" of course) live on the back screened porch because (1) my eyes are allergic to them - if I pet one and then touch my eye it swells shut, so if they lived inside, I wouldn't be able to touch ANYTHING and then touch my eye, and (2) at least one and possibly two of them refuse to use a litter box. They have two enormous ones out there on the porch that they do like better than the regular litter boxes they used to have, but "someone" -- probably Harley, who is 18 years old -- refuses to use even those.

Anyway, now that it's getting cold, and since they can't come inside, I needed to do something to make it easier for them to stay warm. Previously, I had put a heated mattress pad on the bed out there, and set one of those oil radiator heaters out there nearby. But I think this year will be better. Mark had a really good idea. At the end of last year, it occurred to me to put that radiator inside a dog crate and cover the crate with a blanket and that did help when it was really really cold. But most of the time it was way TOO hot in there. So this year Mark suggested we put the radiator back in that dog crate and then put a SECOND crate on top of the one with the radiator. So the upper crate gets nice and warm from the heat below, but not TOO warm. When the temperature isn't too cold -- 50's and up -- I don't cover that top crate. But when it gets really cold I'll use a king size blanket that covers up both the crates.

I put that chair next to the crates so they can easily get up to the top one and even relax in the chair if they like. (Abigail loves to curl up inside the left arm of the thing. She's so strange.)

Anyway, so far they seem to love the new arrangement!

And I love being able to see them from the living room so I can be sure they're okay. Note that Harley, the 18-year-old, likes to sit RIGHT next to the heater, even when it's about 55 degrees outside. (Old is old, I guess.) And the other two, Abigail and Li'l Guy, seem to LOVE the "upstairs" room. Great idea, Mark!

Thank goodness!

2011-12-03T10:49:00.001-06:00

Mark and I checked on Lizzie every hour all night long. She never laid down one time - just slept standing up. So that was encouraging. But it was this morning before she finally had a bowel movement. I was beginning to worry that it might not be going to happen. Thank goodness! So once that happened, she got to eat half of her normal feed and get turned back out. She was ecstatic! (She hasn't ever been confined to a stall here before - only to her paddock occasionally. She was NOT happy about being locked in.)

Since Lizzie didn't get turned out for a couple hours after Duke had his breakfast, he wasn't around when she first went out. But when he noticed that she was back out there with him he HAD to go chase her around for a while, of course.

Then later when he saw her come over to the fence to say "hello" to me he came after her again. He is such a pain!

I think he was a lot better boy over at Al's when he not only had a LOT of mares (so no single one got continually harassed), but there were other horses around as well who didn't take any crap from him. I'm sure Lizzie wishes Bug were still around!

I was taking pictures of Lizzie when I looked over and there was Duke eating dead poison ivy vines off one of the trees! Good grief!

I'm not kidding when I say the boy eats EVERYTHING anywhere in the pasture. I told the vet about how he eats leaves intentionally -- in fact he rears up on his back legs to eat them directly off the trees when he runs out of the ones on the ground! She said that's very unusual - that horses normally eat grass WITHOUT eating the leaves even in the fall. She also said that since Lizzie also ate leaves, that may well have been one of the reasons she got colic because leaves are not nearly as soft as grass, and she obviously isn't able to chew them up since the leaves in the stools the vet pulled out during her exam were completely intact. So they may well have contributed to the impaction. We plan to go over to Sears after while and check out their yard vacs. I know they aren't good enough to pick up acorns, but they should pick up leaves anyway. We'll have to check.

I yelled at Duke while he was eating that poison ivy and he DID stop - although he doesn't look pleased, does he? And of course right after that he turned around and was eating the leaves on that low branch there behind him. (He had to rear up slightly to reach it, but he managed. Sigh.)

It's a darned good thing he's young with good teeth. But I'm not the least bit sure, though, that he will manage to live to be an old man if he keeps that up after his teeth AREN'T perfect any more. But one thing at a time.

I'm putting off the office move until next week. After being up most of the night I really do NOT feel like doing anything that major. Actually, I don't feel like doing a darned thing except keeping an eye on Lizzie. So - time to go back outside. (It is a lovely day - especially with Lizzie happily grazing out there.)

Horse emergency!

2011-12-02T23:59:00.001-06:00

This time it's Lizzie.

Lizzie was fine on Friday morning. She ate her breakfast, then she and Duke got turned out and ran around together for a while and then were grazing. But by noon, she had laid down out in the pasture and was staying down. Thank goodness Lisa was out there spreading winter rye seed and cleaning up. She saw her laying down and went over and spent time with her, finally managing to get her up. And then they walked and walked and walked. Mark DID call me early in the afternoon at work and told me Lizzie was laying down, but he said she was laying in an upright position, not on her side so I didn't think it was a danger sign. I didn't find out until their next call that while Lisa was walking her, the minute they stopped she would immediately lay down again! Uh oh.

So at that point, I asked them to get out the stethoscope and see if they could hear bowel sounds on both sides. Buddy said she was loud on one side but that the other side sounded more like that quiet sound you hear when you listen to a seashell! Oh no!

So I asked him to go ahead and give her that equine colic medicine I just bought, and I left work and headed home. On the way I gave LSU a call. They weren't able to reach Ann, Lizzie’s vet - she was up in Folsom, I think. But they said I should just bring Lizzie in to the vet school and get her examined there, even if the meds were working (just in case - since it WAS a Friday afternoon). So I called home again and told them to hook up the horse trailer. Lizzie was already in the trailer and we were getting ready to head out when Ann called and said she was back and would come to the house, so that's what we did. We unloaded Lizzie and waited for Ann to come.

At that point Lizzie HAD stopped trying to lay down continually, so I thought maybe that colic medicine had done some good. But by then her legs seemed to be hurting her. As she stood there, she would hold up one back leg for a minute or two, then the other. THAT made me wonder if she was trying to lay down because her legs hurt. There’s always been a possibility that she has DSLD/ESPA, but since Ann put her on Pergolide medication for Cushings she has seemed quite normal so this is something we haven’t seen for a long time.

But when Ann got here and examined her, she said she did indeed have colic. When she examined her stools, there were lots of completely intact leaves as well as pieces of hay that were still more than an inch long in there (over half an inch is an indication that they aren't able to chew efficiently).

I had been keeping both Duke and Lizzie inside at night over the last week or so, giving them hay instead of letting them out in the pasture because of all those leaves. I had seen them both eating them and I thought it would be better to keep them in and give them hay half the day and only let them out into the pasture the other half so they wouldn’t be eating leaves constantly. But Ann said that Lizzie, unlike Duke, apparently isn't able to chew sufficiently to manage leaves, let alone large amounts of hay. She recommended that once we get through this (oh Lord, I hope we DO get through this!), I should switch her over to senior feed and gradually increase the amount of chopped alfalfa she gets instead of giving her as much hay as she wants. I might look into hay cubes, as well. I’ll have to see what Marston’s has available.

And I think we will be renting a lawn vacuum to clear out as many of those leaves as we can.

Anyway, time to go back to the barn. I’ve been going out to check on Lizzie every hour or so tonight. She seems to feel pretty much normal again, but I haven’t seen any poop yet, and she’s not going to be allowed to eat anything at all until she does. So . . . although things are not nearly as frightening as they were with Bug at this point, they’re not back to normal by any means.

Wow. Horses seem to be waaaaay more fragile than dogs! Who woulda thought . . . (I wonder who the heck came up with that “healthy as a horse” saying!!!)

Plans for the weekend

2011-12-02T11:29:00.000-06:00

Mark is going to be running the water and electrical lines out to the barn today and tomorrow - with Buddy and Lisa's help. I've been having problems with my legs again so even if I were home instead of at work, I probably wouldn't be much help with something like that. (Back to the doctor next week.)

But I'll still have plenty to do once I get home this afternoon. I plan to move our office (3 desks, 2 computers, 8 file cabinets, a TV, etc. etc. etc.) out into the central library upstairs, then turn that room we've been using back into a guest room. And I'll definitely need to do it while I have Lisa here to help me move all that stuff!

I'm not sure who all is coming down for Christmas this year, but once that room has been cleared out, we'll be back to three guest rooms instead of two -- much better. I want everyone to feel they can drop in absolutely anytime, no matter who else might be here. This house is way too big for me to keep straightened up at this point, but at least it's big enough for lots of company if they're not too picky! But hey -- I'll just call a maid before any visitors arrive!

I think Boo is going to be happy with the move. That way we will both be hanging out right next to him while he reclines on that love seat that's up there! Of course if we move the love seat away from the front window, that won't make him happy. When he hears something going on outside and can't see it from the front door, he races upstairs and jumps onto the love seat so he can look out the upstairs window. Hmm. I'll have to think how the furniture can be arranged. But I doubt that he'll get to keep his upstairs view. I just hope he doesn't feel the need to climb onto a desk instead if that's what ends up in front of the window! Well, we'll see.

The lights I ordered from Farm-Tek came yesterday. Mark hung one up temporarily in the front room of the barn last night and put one of those giant 85-watt fluorescent bulbs I ordered a while back in there -- that's that bulb that's a good foot tall. And when we turned it on it WAS really bright. But that was NOTHING compared to how it looked when I went back out a few hours later to check on the horses before bed. I left that light on and although I knew it would take a while for it to reach its full brightness, I couldn't believe how that thing looked by then. It was at least twice as bright as it had been when I was out there earlier. It IS supposed to equal a 300-watt regular bulb, but good grief! . . . you could barely look up at it without blinding yourself! Whew!

I'm planning to use another light like that in that central hallway in the center of the stalls, then put dimmer bulbs in the fixtures hanging above each of the actual stalls. But there will definitely be plenty of light in there if the vet needs to examine someone. She won't need take any horse outside anymore.

I hope we can get all that furniture moved this afternoon and tomorrow morning. Then I'm going to run and get a bag of winter rye grass seed and hope that there's enough time left for Lisa to walk around the pasture with that seeder and spread that seed. It's supposed to rain tomorrow night, and you're supposed to spread the seed right before a rain and then keep the horses in their paddock and away from it until it gets rained into the ground.

I also want to clean out our refrigerator. We've gotten to the point again where I have no idea what all there is at the back of all those shelves!

And if we get all that done? . . . well, I plan to collapse in front of the TV and/or computer all day on Sunday! I am seriously looking forward to that!

Joey's bedtime

2011-11-30T21:24:00.002-06:00

Joey has gotten to be a pretty spoiled little guy in a lot of senses. And now that it's cold down here, he expects to be "tucked in" when it's time for bed each night. So tonight I decided to take a few pictures of the process.

First he heads over to his bed and jumps in there and sits up staring at me. Then I say "Do you want your blankie?" and he stares at me even more intently -- like a normal dog would if you asked him if he wanted a treat. So then I go spread the blanket out over the bed and around him. He thinks about it for just a minute, then he lays down and goes right to sleep.

Every night.

First he gets his "blankie"

Then he slowly lays down in his bed

He's thinking -- time to go to sleep

"Yawn"

Head down . . .

Nodding off . . .

Gone to sleep . . .
(If it were REALLY cold he would curl up and put his head under the blanket, too.)

I'll tell you what -- the boy can be a serious pain, but hey - you gotta love him. Is he adorable or what?

Grrrrrr

2011-11-30T11:52:00.002-06:00

First, let me say that if Mark were not an electrician, we wouldn't HAVE a home phone at all at the moment. But as it is, he has managed to bypass some of the connections that had rusted out in the phone box on the outside of our house so the phone still works (unless it rains, that is), but we have been trying to get AT&T to come replace that no-longer-waterproof box with a working one for THREE DAYS. Has anyone else ever tried to reach them? Their phone connections are completely ridiculous. I cannot tell you how absolutely FURIOUS I was by the time I finally got hold of a service rep -- the FINAL rep. I say "final" because I must have talked to at least half a dozen of them -- AFTER having gone through those computer questions on there over and over and over and over ... and each of them proceeded to transfer me to yet another department where I had to go through level after level after level of those computer questions yet AGAIN.

Well, when I finally reached that last woman, before I even bothered to try and explain - AGAIN - what we needed, I told her that if the problem wasn't solved right then -- by her -- WITHOUT being transferred yet again -- then we would be cancelling their phone service and going with a different company starting NOW. Well, I don't know if she was actually the person who did that scheduling, or if she made the necessary call herself instead of transferring me, but at any rate, a service man is supposedly scheduled to come out tomorrow morning. Or so she said. If he doesn't, we WILL be getting a different phone company by the end of the day tomorrow.

Now -- if only my blood pressure would just cool back down . . .

Yippee!!!

2011-11-29T09:24:00.003-06:00

Mark got a call from the president of his company last night -- needless to say, he was a BIT concerned. He thought the guy might be about to tell him he'd been let go. But no! . . . instead he told Mark he had won a Ford Expedition!!!

Can you BELIEVE it! I am SO excited! It's not a brand new one -- it's a company executive vehicle so it's probably a couple years old. We don't really know exactly. But regardless, it's obviously worth a lot more than that station wagon he's driving at the moment, that's for sure!

Anyway, his company had a contest among folks who made major positive health lifestyle changes over the past year. Mark's entry was based on the fact that he stopped smoking last January 1 -- after 45 years! Well, that has certainly paid off for him! The company will be flying him over to Houston for a company gathering the day after he gets in next time - December 22 - then he will be driving the Expedition home. Terrific!

He's been driving that little Mercury Sable wagon (the country's LEAST stolen car, we read somewhere) that I used to drive before we bought my Honda Ridgeline. So I'm going to feel a lot better now, knowing he's driving something really LARGE in case he's ever in an accident. (It's the same size as a Ford F-150. You can fold down the back seats and put in a full 4 X 8 sheet of plywood!) He has to do so much driving back and forth to work in all kinds of weather and at all hours of the day and night. That's always worried me. So I am absolutely THRILLED -- even though the gas it will take will probably equal an actual car payment!

It'll also be good to have TWO vehicles that can pull a horse trailer - and that one will have room for all the other animals as well, in case we ever have to evacuate for any reason.

Okay. I need to settle down and get to work. Or try anyway! But I sure am tickled!

Monday, Monday

2011-11-28T12:57:00.000-06:00

Sure woke up in a hurry this morning! I'm usually less than alert until I have my coffee -- but not this morning! Got up to let the dogs out (those darned boys get up at 5:30 or 6 AM no matter what and prance around whining and telling me I'll have to clean up the floor if I don't jump up this minute and let them out). So anyway, as I walked out onto the porch to let them out this morning, there was Duke pulling bits of hay out of the gravel outside his stall! Good grief! That's why we cleared all that gravel out of the stalls over the weekend -- so he wouldn't accidentally bite down on a stone and break a tooth or even accidentally swallow one! What the heck!!

So I ran over to the barn in my robe (WIDE awake now) and stuck another half a bale in there for him until Mark could get them fed and turned out this morning! Granted, he had run out of hay, so I guess it was a natural progression as far as he was concerned to go check around outside. But that's taught US a lesson -- keep LOTS of hay in there for him at all times - and hope that gravel gets stomped into the dirt SOON!

And then I got to spend 10 more minutes out there in the cold getting all all that hay off my velour robe before I could go back inside. Brrrrr!

On the plus side, I talked to Wendy this weekend and she says they're going to be allowed to take vacation before the first of the year after all, so she's planning to come down for Christmas. Hooray! (I tried hard to talk her into bringing her boyfriend along, but I don't think she's convinced. Too bad - I'd sure like to meet him!)

Well, I'm back at work now, and Mark is out driving around looking for new tires. We're back to routine life for a while again -- until the long Christmas weekend anyway. No vacation time left until after the first of the year so - no choice. But it's sure better this year than it was last winter since we never have to drive over to Al's to deal with the horses anymore. Love it! (If only Bug were here.)