Tidbits from My Week

It never fails. You think you’ve got it covered. But you don’t. Yesterday, I went out to feed the horses and tend to one of the horse’s injuries. It had rained quite a bit and I knew there would be lots of mud. So, after getting dressed, I doned an apron to keep my clean clothes clean and my muck boots. I was covered up except for about six inches around the knee area.

I was walking Melody over to the barn to tend to her wound and it is especially muddy just outside the barn. And I’m not just talking about mud. I mean, there is a lot of muddy horse poo around the barn. But I was still shocked when she stepped into a puddle and the muddy poopy water shot up like a volcano all over my knee. Not on my apron. On my nice clean knee. The picture doesn’t even do this justice.

Speaking of injuries. Oh my. Sarah’s horse, Melody did a doozy on herself. When I first saw it all I could think was, “She’s going to need reconstructive surgery!!!!” We’ve had our share of scary injuries over the last few years, but this, this was beyond horrible, I thought.

Melody ripped open her hiney. Her her lovely female parts. All torn up. The vet didn’t seem concerned. In fact, she didn’t even feel the need to come out and look at it. Despite my horror. Apparently this happens more than I realized, usually when a mare goes to itch a scratch on the nearest available surface. She’s been amazing when I go to rub the miracle ointment on her. She doesn’t get skittish or jumpy, and hasn’t tried to kick me for rubbing sulfur stuff all over her stuff.

Here’s a graphic photo. You can share my pain. Don’t look if you are weak in the stomach.

The wound is swollen three times bigger than normal. She’s supposed to be all nice and tight and pretty down there.

We had a tragedy this week. Our calico bunnies were killed. We don’t know how it happened. Dogs were probably involved. We know which dogs were NOT involved, but not those who were involved. We also don’t know how the door to the rabbit hutch got opened and there werre no apparent scratch marks or other indications that anything tried to open the door. But somehow the door fell open and the bunnies got out and were killed.

We came home from church. I went in the house. Minutes later I heard my youngest child wailing. I thought she had been mauled by a neighbor dog or something, the crying was so bad. She’d found her bunny on the ground. Thankfully it wasn’t half eaten. She looked perfect except, she wasn’t moving.

The girls painted a beautiful stone for the grave. Their friend from next door helped. My son dug the grave. We buried the rabbits and placed the stone and a bouquet of daffodils from the yard on top.

It was a very, very sad day. The girls cried for hours. Laura, my youngest (age 8), said to me, “Mom, I think this is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through.”

I’ve thought about that statement. It was probably true. My kids have had a pretty good life. But this really hurt. We’re gonna miss Butterscotch and Clover. Makes us all the more ready to see Jesus come back too take us home to heaven.

In happier news, my seedlings are coming up nicely. My tomato plants are even getting their real leaves!

We also had four monster trees cut down this week. One of the trees, a massive oak, was about 120 feet tall, 19 feet around at the base and I counted 109 rings after it was cut down. You can’t even imagine how big those trees were! The branches on this tree were as long as the trunk of the tree was tall! I think we’ll have enough firewood to last us for the next five years or more. My front yard looks like a tornado hit it. It’ll probably take us six months to get the trees chopped up and all the wood stacked. Here’s a photo of just some of the wood from a few of the branches from the oak I was just talking about.

Notice little Nikki sleeping in the pile of leaves beneath the stack of wood.

So, what’s going on in your neck of the woods?