Why I Often Lapse on Blogging: An Example

I. Bloody. Hate. Winter.

"But it's PRETTY!"

A) As much as I love Antares tack and beautiful horses, and I do, don't let that lead you to believe that I will sacrifice function for appearances, because I will not. Ever.

B) Everyone who wants to remind me that winter is pretty is not primarily responsible for the care and feeding of ten asshole horses at two different farms thirty minutes from each other, one of which is on top of a mountain (M's) and the other of which has the least logical paddock layout in history (mine).

C) Nor have they had to take a horse in for an enucleation lately.

Friday was an example of a day that I just wanted to lie down in the ice until I cried myself to a frozen death. My wonderful old horse had to go in for an enucleation because we just couldn't get the eye healed and we were all very worried that it was going to rupture. He's okay-ish now. His eye doesn't hurt anymore, but I think the whole thing is pretty uncomfortable as it heals. He's tough to dose (though not as tough as Red) because he's a pro at spitting stuff out, so I'm not entirely confident that he's getting the bute, which he won't eat in his feed. He's not happy that he's in and he's a bit off his feed. I'll be worried for a few more days but as the surgical site heals, he should feel a lot better.

Still walked onto the trailer like a champ because he's the best ever.

I should say that there was a lot of logistical difficulty in GETTING him to the vet--the roads were a touch wintry, and I don't feel confident pulling the rig in imperfect conditions (especially when I don't know where I'm going). My mom was on call. I had to feed our horses and M's that morning. Mom ended up taking him in and being two hours late to work, and I feel bad about that, but even if I did feel better about my driving, I couldn't have gotten him there on time without ten horses colicking for missing breakfast.

I fed our horses and turned them out, and then rushed over to M's. Her horses had been in all day and all night because of the rain/snow, so the stalls were a mess. It took me three hours to do the barn, and it's only five stalls. So I hurried home from there to do MY stalls before I had to go to work, and found that my little Italian greyhound had had his sides ripped open by my mom's lab. So I called in sick and took him to the vet practice my mom uses. He'll be fine (no internal injury as I feared) but he's pretty miserable now. And scared. I don't blame him. So there's lots of dog-management happening in addition to horse management.

Doesn't do it justice. He's a very pathetic FrankenPuppy.

Plus I got really upset at the way the small animal vet talked to me. I don't know her, she doesn't know me. I showed up in my filthy barn clothes holding a bleeding dog, and I think she assumed I was a shithead and/or stupid. I am not a shithead and I'm not stupid. I love my animals as much as a person can love animals. I spend ALL of my money on them. I'm also a very smart person. So the way she treated me, just jumping from assumptions and not listening to what I was telling her, was unacceptable. Time to find a new practice altogether.

The thing is, while Friday was an unusually terrible day, it wasn't that unusual. Maybe a faculty job will open somewhere with sane weather, like South Carolina. I can handle insane political scenes if it just isn't WINTER ALL THE TIME. And while I love horse management, my old shoulder injury could use a break from mucking.


This coming week is supposed to get worse, but the good news is, my sister-in-law is having her second baby. While I doubt sincerely that anyone can be as cute as my perfect nephew, so far she and my brother are batting 1000 on flawless offspring. So I'm excited!

We took him when we looked for a saddle for Mom.
He kept trying to pull adult-size saddles off the wall
and saying he wanted "just one more."
Finally we talked him into this Beval Junior.
(Which we didn't buy him, because he is two,
but I think I have a budding tack ho on our hands.)