Into the deep freeze

I took time out of my day today to go join the Bay Colony Pomeranian Club at their monthly luncheon. Great group of very knowledgeable people. Having been intending to join for some time, it felt good to cross that off my to-do list, BUT I feel somewhat less prepared for tonight's extreme cold than I wanted to be. I did everything I planned to do to prepare, really, with the exception of filling up the car's gas tank; but since it is kept in the garage I hope that won't be a problem. I'll feel bad for the attendant when I stop at the full serve station in the morning though! Since I live in the middle of nowhere and it's Sunday night, both stations are already closed or I would go out now. I hate when I remember things like that just a few minutes too late. Like remembering the need to go to the post office or bank at precisely 12:02 on a Saturday. I do that constantly.

It's supposed to go down to -20 dF here tonight, with wind chills to -35. That's 20 with a negative. That's unholy cold. My horses have been given obscene amounts of hay, digesting it helps keep them warm, and they all have heated water buckets as well. I typically put them out in the corral when I leave for work in the morning, but tomorrow they will have to stay in, there is no windbreak in their paddock and frostbitten ears is the last thing I need to deal with. Makes stall cleaning harder but that's a small price to pay. The dogs are pretty sensible and do their outside business in record time when it's so cold, but their little paw pads can get frostbitten if they stay out too long.

Having enjoyed (not!) 48 hours without hot water earlier this week when the pipe under the house froze, the water will be running all night too. I did not enjoy my time in the crawlspace thawing it out, either. I can, and do, do without a lot, but hot water is a non-negotiable modern amenity, one of the wonders of the world, and balm for both the soul and the tired sore body after a day of farm work.

For everyone who wanted an update on Henry (formerly Kris Kringle formerly Crusty), he is, alive, well, and wreaking havoc at my sister's house. In a twist of fate even odder than the ones I mentioned in my original post about him, it turns out that at the same day and hour I was chasing Henry into the cow barn, my sister had to have her sweet cat Pumpkin put to sleep, completely unexpectedly. That felt a little to synchronous and serendipitous to ignore, so, having doubled his weight during two weeks at DarcC's all-you-can-eat buffet and a follow-up appointment with the vet, I handed him over along with all food, toys, and vet records he had already accumulated, with the admonishment that "there is no such thing as a free kitten." Henry is now comfortably ensconced in said sister's household, where he enjoyed climbing the xmas tree (until they took it down - early!), tormenting their sweet dog Buddy, and playing with my nephews. As soon as the antibiotics kicked in and Henry started perking up, he, smart kitty, realized precisely how good life and human attention could be! He is an absolute doll, and far too sweet to be the barn cat I thought he would be. Below are some pics of Henry in his new home. Here's what sister said when she sent the pics: "He is so cute!!!! He's a good boy, we all love him except when the boys are putting together legos, Henry loves legos too, and the boys get annoyed. But they love him too."





A far cry from the crusty, shivering, mucus-oozing bone-rack that huddled in a dog crate here for the first warm night of his life one short month ago.

Stay warm y'all!

There's a sucker born every minute

Saturday morning began much like any other weekend morning in DarcC-land. I awoke, unleashed the hounds, fed and turned out the horses, and even managed to feed myself, all in short order. I then dashed directly off to the local feed store to procure a roll of fence wire, in order to install a new and improved dog yard. However, the universe had other plans, which initially manifested themselves as an inability to get the 5ft high, 100ft long roll of fencing in to the back of the effing car. No amount of rear-seat 60/40 split-bench folding, trunk slamming, and front power seat reclining could make that bad boy fit. Fine. I informed the nice boys who regularly stuff hay, shavings, grain, etc. into my erstwhile vehicle that I would have to return later, when my swedish-pickup (aka volvo wagon) driving friend would be coming to visit; I was certain he wouldn't mind a scenic trip to the feed store. He arrived and didn't mind at all, so off we set.

Only this time, the universe saw fit to have a little kitten start across the road in front of us. Eagle-eyes that I am, I detected scrawny from 150 feet away. As we got closer, instead of scampering, the kitten merely crouched down in the other lane. As we slowly crept by, I got a good look at him and saw that his entire face - eyes, nose, mouth, everything - was completely obscured by a crust of dried pus. Friend kept driving as my freakout began. I'll spare you the details. Suffice it to say that we didn't drive much farther, and luckily I keep my neighbor/vet's number on speed dial. I called her now, informed her that I was about to "do a stupid" and pick up a sick feral kitten, and would she help me, seeing as her office was already closed for the weekend. She said she would, and we returned, sans fence, to the dairy farm where the kitten sighting took place. I saw the kitten, thankfully out of the road, disappear into a hole in the door of a big old barn.

I knocked on the door of the farmhouse and when a man answered the door, pretended (while inwardly seething) to really want a kitten, and ask if I could catch one I had seen go into the barn. "Take them all" I was told. "If you can catch them, people dump them here all the time". Which is undoubtedly true, but 1) when I see its mother and several other probable generations too, you can trap/fix/release for short or no money, call the animal rescue league's spay waggin; and 2) this is a dairy farm, do you really want diseased cats running around your milk cows and veal calves? Bogus. He did find me a cardboard box to carry it home, and told me which barn door to use, and off I went.

I had visions of clambering around the big old place searching for this kitten, but he was in even worse shape than I thought and hadn't gone far, crouching just inside the door, sparing me the need to search and chase. His eyes were so obscured by crust that he didn't even see me reaching for him, and when I picked him up gave only one weak swipe with a front paw, no match for my heavy winter work gloves. Then into the box he went, without so much as a hiss or a yowl, and he was quiet and still the rest of the ride home. Here is a picture taken AFTER we had cleaned up his face! None of the pics capture what a rack of bones he is, held together by nothing but skin.

I put him into a dog crate with a bolster cushion and waited for Neighbor Vet, who didn't take long at all to arrive with supplies. She expertly cleaned his face with dampened gauze pads (I regret not getting "before" pictures in time), listened to him struggle to breathe, declared he had both an upper respiratory infection and a secondary herpes infection in his eyes, injected subcutaneous fluids, syringed human baby food into him, and pronounced him a male of the species. She then generously offered to open up the clinic to get the antibiotics, eye ointments, and de-wormer he required, so we followed her there and got the pills and potions, and returned home to further dose the little guy while she continued on her way to a family function. After the initial dosing, friend and I went to actually get the fence, litter box, teeny food and water bowls, kitten kibble, and dinner, and when I returned little Crusty was sleeping like the proverbial dead, covered in the blanket I'd put in earlier, head propped up on the bolster of the cushion. He woke up long enough for me to rearrange his crate and add the litter pan, and had perked up enough to purr as I cradled and petted him. Wild kitten tamed, at least temporarily.

Here's the reaction from the inmates who run the asylum:

"Holy Crap! It's a kitten! When did we get a kitten? I didn't ask for a kitten! Why was I not consulted?"




















Luna, Willow, and Wylie don't look too happy. Midgie is distinctly displeased.











Mooney wonders if he is somehow not cute enough anymore, now that he is a big seven month old boy?






Oblivious to the uproar his presence has caused, Crusty slumbers on... He perked up one more time around nine, just long enough to meow a couple times, and otherwise gasped, gurgled, snorted and sneezed his way through the night. It was so bad whenever I couldn't hear him breathing I thought I'd lost him. But he was still there in the morning, so I guess he decided to live. Neighbor Vet came by to check on him right after I'd dosed him again, and was going to come back to give him more fluids, but wound up coming back to take him home with her to be able to pump fluid into him all day. I only know how to give intramuscular shots to horses, I guess I should learn cats and dogs, and intravenous of all types. He spent last night with her and went to work with her today, to be tested for FIV and FELV. If he had tested positive he would have been put down, happily he is negative for both. He is spending tonight next door as well for a final dose of fluid in the morning and a steam bath all night to help his breathing. I'm working at home tomorrow so he'll come back in the morning, I'll post an update tomorrow.

Evolution

This blog is evolving, as is everything else on this planet. So rather than having it be exclusively about someday farm, I am hereby throwing open the gates to the rest of my life. Which my non-existent audience will undoubtedly find just as boring as I do. So. Here goes nothing.

My sweet, blind mare Tag will be having her right eye removed Tuesday. After five and a half looong years of trying and failing to slow the progression of vision loss due to Equine Recurrent Uveitis (ERU for short, aka moonblindness, aka Periodic Opthalmia) , glaucoma has set in, secondary to the ERU. While glaucoma was not unanticipated, I did not expect it to sneak in the way it did. Looking back , I have known for several months that Tag was really not quite herself, but with everything else that was going on in my life last year I did not worry as much about it as I should have. So when Tag started a bad flare-up last week, I began treating it as usual, although it did prompt me to have the talk about enucleation with my vet that I kept forgetting to have. Vet encouraged me to have a consultation with a vet from a nearby equine urgent care clinic, as they have a specialty piece of equipment that vet does not have; i.e. a tono-pen. Tono-pens measure intra-ocular pressure, that is, the pressure inside the eyeball. Normal is below twenty, over twenty is glaucoma, over thirty is bad. Tag's left eye (also blind but thankfully flare-up free, for now, at least) was an excellent 16. Tag's right eye was a very alarming 87. 87!!!! What a migraine that must be causing. So do to the danger of the eyeball rupturing on it's own, I scheduled surgery post-haste, for this Tuesday.

The hard part is that I will be out of town for work when my baby goes under the knife. I will be able to bring her to the clinic on Monday morning, to help her make that transition, but I cannot be there for any of her post-op care. So Tag will stay at the clinic until I return, she will come back to the barn a week from Monday. I expect by that time she will be quite her old self, pain-free and spunkier. Lookout world.

On the "DarcC is a freak" front, the surgical vet, while surprised my request, has promised me that yes, I can have Tag's eyeball in a jar, assuming it comes out in one piece as planned. Apparently sometimes, well, they don't. For all the squeamish people who don't read this, I won't elaborate. That eyeball has cost me a lot of money, damnit; it's mine and I want it back. Someday in the hopefully distant future I want to be able to bury it with her so she's whole again. Or maybe I'll just keep it to freak out small children - it can become a neighborhood legend, Boo Radley-esque. I'll be the crazy eyeball lady. "did you know she keeps an eyeball in a jar? No-one really knows whose it is, but some say it was a little kid who gave her a dirty look one day..." Or something to that effect.