Germs be gone

Cold virus germs I'm guessing. But maybe I'm just having a bit of allergy stuff and it will clear off without all the 'fun' of having the full spectrum of cold symptoms. I've been fairly blessed with good health so will have to resist urge to be totally whiny if I do get sick. I just don't want to get a full blown sinus infection. Will bust out the 'hot stuff' tonight. That seems to work well to ward off crap most of the time. I may have to buy stuff and make another batch. Perhaps I'm being a bit over aware of cold symptoms because an internet friend is critically ill with some lung infection. She was in hospital for 10 days in Pensacola and they were stumped and flew her to UAB in Birminham to the university hospital that has a special research unit for lung infections. I'm too lazy to web search it on another window and pull in the correct word.

I'm also really really wanting any germs to be getting vanquished in the bay girls. Should just count my blessing that they do not feel sick but the thought of either of them developing a respiratory issue and not being able to do the distance riding is almost as scary to me as thoughts of colic.

A rescuer in VA that I follow just posted that she needs to place 7 horses, 1 is arab. I usually manage to avoid getting sucked into thoughts of rescuing anything because 4 horse is really way too many. But my heart is getting tugged recently, I guess I'm fairly sure that I will part with Cindy soon although I've been totally waffling about euthanizing her or just seeing how things go this winter. Sister's SO euth'd her gelding for her last week, they had a back-hoe out to put in an automatic waterer and went ahead and put down and buried Muley while it was there. I think I will see if my animal communicator friend will talk to Cindy. Some days Cindy nickers for food and seems pretty cheerful and some days she comes over and eats but is resting the leg with the hock tendon injury and just doesn't seem to be thinking life is all that grand anymore. It sucks to have to be the decider.

I'm back in my Saturn SC

Picked it up from the mechanic this morning. A bit less than his estimate, every little bit helps so yay. It was good to be back in my own car. Mom's prius is a lot plusher car and my pickup is plusher too, but I traded down in cars so I could trade up in pickup for theoretically more reliability when towing horses. Well and I needed a bigger truck unless I traded off the BAT for a smaller &/or lighter horse trailer. The F350 has done well this summer after the memorial weekend misery with the fuel pump/ $$$ ruined injectors. Speaking of which I should track down the site with maintainence tips so I know what to ask P to do beyond basic oil change.

Shade had a round of coughing this morning as I went out to feed, so after skipping the cough free herbs yesterday I guess I'll try to give them again, maybe even dose her at night a few times. She has good appetite and seems pretty good overall, so I am trying to avoid being hypochondriac horse owner. Sadie has had moist nostrils, not even white snot and no more coughing so same story, trying to not 2nd guess my decision not to keep giving her antibiotics.

Barely any coughing this weekend

Rode Grey Moun tonight. He was a jiggy fool so I think his lungs worked enough to say they are clear. So glad he didn't get whatever Shade has. Not absolutely positive we are clear yet but she was sick 1.5 weeks after the ride in NE, and its now 3 weeks.

I think I will stop giving Sadie antibiotics, she has had 1 week which was dr Mikes initial suggestion. I will give Shade 2 weeks worth, ending on friday unless she gets worse. Very little coughing this weekend. I heard one cough today and it did not sound labored or nasty. I should have rode CJ this weekend but was lazy.

I did give Shade cough free this weekend. Smaller doses of herbs with oil to fill the syringe to same level worked better. I gave 2 small doses saturday but only got morning dose today. I think she'll live. Tomorrow my car goes to the mechanic. I'll have to remember to ask them to check the brakes, they were squeaking pretty good the other day.

Why I thought Shade had strangles

Also why this is not a photoblog, LOL. All the dirty brown bits on the trailer are coughed up feed from wednesday morning.

No coughing this morning except after giving cough free

Yeah a bit ironic that giving cough free made Shade cough but its not a soothing syrup. Its a blend of powdered herbs. Shade wont eat it so I've been mixing it with oil and dosing her via syringe. Mixing it with oil because the herbs don't dissolve in water, so not too surprising that it might be a bit scratchy going down. I am undecided on continuing to give it. I want to clear any crap out of Shades lungs, but I don't want to be giving her a micro choke episode every morning.

Dr Mike was going to switch me to SMZ's. I think because I reported Shade was really coughing while eating wednesday. I solved that by soaking her grain to a mush, and the pharm. delivery wasn't at the clinic yet when I stopped in on way to work so I got a tub of tucoprim so I can dose that, I may run in and pick up SMZ's but I think Dr Mike was suggesting them because of my report of Shade coughing but he thinks this is the antibiotic group to be using.

Man my navigational abilities suck. I missed the exit I wanted, then turned too quick on the make-up exit I wanted, then kept turning the wrong dang way. Tried the GPS and it took me to a wrong address. I couldn't remember the clinic address so I was stuck when the GPS gave me the wrong name. Finally I got something to eat and then found my way to the clinic at the end of their lunch break rather than getting there right before it -would have just made that if I had not missed my exit. OH WELL, this is why I like endurance, the trails to take are usually really well marked because some people expect to be able to follow them while keeping up a good clip, and others are even more navigationally challenged than I am.

In better news my cars battery is toast

I had to get jump-started twice monday to get home. *I probably should have just kept the car running while I put in gas . but my luck I would have been that 1 in xxx that causes a fire so I turned it off. I didn't have to wait long to get another customer to jump me so it was ok. I would not have stopped for gas but I had let the tank get low and needed more gas to get home. Still had no juice when I got home and tried it right after turning it off.

Charged it overnight from the plug in charger and car started fine in the morning so I was wondering if it might be the alternator, even though I had juice to drive home with lights etc. But I also thought 'maybe it still takes charge but does not hold a charge anymore' Bingo - it was dead again this morning. I found the date punches on the batter they show oct 03. Pretty good for a 60 month battery so I think I'll let my small business mechanic sell me the replacement battery since he said he carries Interstate batteries and thats what is in there that looks like it ran for 83 months.

I have a tension headache, I'm getting too emotionally invested in politics again, plus there is a program at work that won't work, I don't know how to fix it myself so will remain stuck until the code expert has time -I need to just pull away which is hard for me sometimes. I looked around the website of the group that wrote the underlying software and its deprecated now. They want people to switch to a java decoder or decode on the fly. Code expert is pretty stuck to perl and I think still anti-java so I doubt if he will switch and I don't know how to install the java program to demonstrate 'hey look this would work fine'. Feels like fall is coming, I looked for winter predictions and they are no help with deciding on Cindy, it might be a mild to normal winter but a few show it could be colder or wetter than typical and our weather is so varied I don't really feel like I know what typical should be after living here 20 years.

I fear Shade might have strangles

So named because it swells lymph nodes and makes it hard for the horse to breath or swallow. Shade was eating her sweet feed and tucoprim this morning and coughed so much a bunch of it went on my trailer wall and the ground. I added a little water to what was left and put a bit of tucoprim in with her cough free powder to replace what was coughed away. IF it IS strangles I don't think the cough free will do much for her but I'm not going to drop it right now. Tomorrow I will soak up her feed ahead of time so the pellets in it will dissolve to mush. I made sure the hay cubes were really soaked up today before I fed them and have stopped having dad give any since I doubt they have time to soften up good when he is feeding at night. If the weather is going to stay cooler like today maybe I can start some soaking before I leave for work.

I think I will be either giving Shade a round of penicillin after the tucoprim or giving her 2 weeks of tucoprim instead of just one. I haven't called sis or thought seriously about Cindy since Shade got sick and I probably wont until Shade is better. Cindy is doing pretty well but the hock must still bother some as that is always the leg I see her resting. I am a bit tempted to let things go, if we would have a mild winter it would probably be fine. But If we have another 2006-2007 with snow that never melts it could be a train wreck and I really don't want to put Cindy through a train wreck.

Poor Shade

I think her cough is getting less severe but there is just something wrenching about hearing a horse cough when it is not just clearing a bit of dust out. I probably jumped the gun starting Sadie on Tucoprim after hearing just one cough from her but I don't think it will hurt her any. Knocking wood profusely I haven't heard any of the geldings coughing.

I am mixing cough free herbal powder with olive oil and then adding a bit of grape jelly behind it to give it to Shade since she wont eat it mixed with feed. Sunday I mixed the cough free with Gerber bananas and it was clumping and clogging in the syringe, the oil is working great to be able to syringe it. Thank goodness she is eating the Tucoprim with sweet feed, it would be getting painful if I had to syringe that as well but if I get "I wont eat that" in future I'll have to try mixing it with oil now that I stumbled on that idea, as I recall it was painful to get the tucoprim to dissolve in water last time I was syringing it.

I had emailed the RM that is only 40 minutes from me and has a ride on Oct 2 that I would come over and volunteer or be a floating crew for riders if she has plenty of volunteers. She replied that she'd love to have me ride if Shade got better but with the cough I've been hearing there is just no way I will do that. I am going to want to give her 2 weeks from the time the cough is completely gone before I start *light* riding to make sure I am not stressing lungs that haven't recovered yet.

mixed horsie news.

Yesterday I only heard Shade cough a bit in the morning and thought, 'well I started antibiotics I'll give em for a week but it must have just been allergy and the wetted hay is finally taking effect. Today Shade was coughing pretty regularly so I got some cough free into her. That is going to be 'fun' to dose since she won't eat it in feed.

Today I rode Razz to take Ole 1 mile to the irrigation ditch. Razz was a bit off on his right front I think. Ole was hot anyway so we only trotted enough for me to notice on the way out and then verify coming back. I guess I'll have to try easyboots and see if he is just wearing his foot down on one side.

This evening I practiced loading Sadie in the stock trailer while I was trying to get Shade to eat cough free in Sr feed with a bit of sweet feed. Sadie did great, I even closed the door on her and she is backing out so nicely for me. BUT I left her tied while I got some cough free syringed into Shade and now Sadie is coughing too, guess its confirmed that I have a respiratory bug. I guess I'll be giving her tucoprim powder too. I have to call Dr Mike and find out if I should just give all 5 horses a round of antibiotics or only the ones that are coughing and if penicillin shots are OK for some. Hmm I cant remember if anybody but CJ is easy for shots.

Waaahh, Shade has a cough and runny nose

I noticed she had a runny nose yesterday, didn't think it was too serious, continued tacking up, thinking I might have to only walk, then just leading her out to the driveway gate she was coughing. So I called Ole back, pulled the saddle and took him for a run with the car. Got some soaked hay cubes for Shade and Grey Moun and some more ready for dad to soak. I am still hoping she might be having allergy response to some hay dust. Well having her be allergic is not great either but at least the whole herd wont be sick if it is not a virus. My initial thought was "oh good thing I was leaning against going to the ride in Westcliffe this weekend anyway" that has now morphed to "crud, maybe our riding season is finished" -if this doesn't clear up very quickly I cant ask Shade to go 50 miles on Oct 2, and trailering hundreds of miles to a multi-day in OK or UT later in october wont be a good idea --and I was already wondering whether I should focus on legging up horses that will go to Meeker on the hunting trip and messing with Sadie instead of trying to cram a multi-day ride into my fall schedule.

Today I emptied the goatheads out of 30qt plastic bin so I could dunk hay, more soaked hay cubes and I counted up how many doses of tucoprim antibiotics I have ~4.5. Less nasal discharge but I heard some coughing --never got a visual confirmation that it was Shade coughing. I don't want to give antibiotics too often but now that I know I have 4+ doses I will start tomorrow if I think Shade is still coughing. I will probably pull her out and walk her a bit to see if she starts coughing.

I have started putting some sugardine (sugar+betadine) on top of the wet cotton in the easyboot for Cindy's abscessed foot. Today after hosing her leg off I just put arnica liniment on it instead of furacin and dmso. I want to bury Cindy either on my property in WY or on the ND property my sister rents from mom and dad --I'll have to decide if I want it badly enough to put her down myself with a bullet instead of having Dr Mike euthanize her. Well if I went clear to ND perhaps I could euth sis's gelding and she could euth Cindy for me but that would mean making Cindy ride 10 hours in the trailer instead of 4.5 to WY. I have got to decide exactly what I want to do before it gets too late -frozen ground preventing getting a pit dug or whatever.

My brother is now a 5th degree BB

I took friday off and my sister drove down from ND on thursday and then we braved a car trip with my parents to Los Alamos NM to watch my brother test for his 5th degree black belt. I opened the Terry Goodkind books I had ordered from Amazon about a month ago and hadn't yet felt like having a reading weekend and read 'Wizards first rule' over the weekend. So nice having multiple drivers so I could read a bunch in the car. I had not read a novel purely for fun in ages. The closest was reading Atlas Shrugs last year after reading so many parallels being drawn to it vs what P/R/O were doing. A useful book - I could not believe how well something written over 50 years ago matched what was going on - I may get myself another copy after sending mine on as a gift after reading it. And it was fun in some parts, but I had to give up and skip a huge section of the repetitious radio lecture part and the the AS book was slow to get to the point in other parts. The Goodkind book had some similar themes about the wrongness of collectivism and beware of worshipping people.

Ed's tae kwon do test was anti-climatic, the hosting group in Los Alamos was running short of time and the 3 people testing for 5th degree belts only did the form part of their test and they skipped breaking wood and sparring. Oh well, it was a nice visit with my siblings. Ed's step-son and pupil S tested for 2nd degree and he looked good doing his sparring and breaks as well as his form. Unfortunately S didn't warm up enough for his roundhouse kick break or something and had a bit of a strain in the muscles or tendons on top of his foot. Did not seem that he was limping too badly so hopefully its just a minor strain. We got to watch Ed spar 1 on 1 after all the new black belts learned the new form(s) for their levels, but that was not too exciting since he was going easy with a newly tested 1st degree black belt.

Now I have to shake off weekend fuzzies and accomplish some work so I'll maybe have time to ride a bit before the weekend.

I must plan Cindy's goodbye

At least she is not in distress and I can plan it to happen in maybe 5-6 weeks. She has an abscess on her right front foot which I knew on thursday when my farrier found it; but she also has a torn tendon in the hock area on the right back leg (several tendons run through there) ; I suspected there was something wrong at that hock area I so didn't cancel the vet visit when the farrier found the abscess. Cindy also injured a tendon on that right back leg around the fetlock area this spring. It healed to 'pasture sound' and I only ever rode her about every month or two the last several years, but she is just having too many problems. I know that some combination of Sadie pushing to switch rank in the herd and Cindy not able to move well enough to suit boss gelding CJ probably led to the hock injury but even keeping her by herself I think she is not going to be able to handle icy ground/snow pack this winter.

So I will treat the abscess with tucoprim(tm) powder antibiotics and the hock tendon with dmso/furacin wraps and a course of bute but I want to schedule her to be picked up and buried on a given date and have Dr Mike come out and put her down while we hopefully are having decent fall weather and Cindy is feeling OK. I hate seeing a horse, any animal actually, in distress and would mentally beat myself up if I tried to keep Cindy going as long as possible and she ending up really hurting while waiting for emergency euthanasia. We usually have snow by Halloween, and sometimes we get an end of september storm but usually a september event melts off real quickly so I could just stall Cindy for a couple of days if we get one this year. I mentioned this to dad before I left for work and he is OK with it, hopefully mom does not try to guilt trip me on it but even if she does I am not yielding, I left my cat Bart a day too long because of that external pressure not to 'rush him into his grave' and I'm not putting myself through that shit again.

85 miles, 1 completion and 1 pull

The rolling sandhills Nebraska ride was actually crossing quite a few draws.(sw ND term for shallow canyons) Steep up and downs even though they were not very long. Plus the sandy soil was kind of slippy the second day. So not the easy ride I had envisioned and I had Shade boogie along at 8+ mph on saturday because it was going to be a hot day. It was quite nice to finish by 2:30 pm but I should have called it a weekend after combining more speed than OUR usual with those draws. But I had planned on riding both days and Shade was fine at the finish and sunday morning so I went ahead and entered the 50 again. I had a mild suspicion of a problem on one of the hind legs coming into the 25 mile VC. It was subtle, to the point I wasn't sure there was anything, let alone which leg -just felt uneven off and on on the sand road coming into the VC, but I mentioned it to the vet. Unfortunately I had the newbie vet and she didn't see anything. I requested her to be looked at before we went out on the 10 mile loop --making clear that is something was brewing I'd rather pull early - and that vet said he didn't see 'much of anything' Since it was a short loop and I was not sure there was anything myself we went ahead and rode it

--rookie vet then saw something on the trot back but not enough to tell me "Right HInd" and I was SO hot and thirsty anyway I just opted to put Shade in her tape pen to eat/drink while I took care of myself the only thing I did was electrolyte her right away. --I felt I would be mentally worthless if I didn't hydrate and cool a bit so even if I had had a specific area to work on I don't know if I would have done anything. Well Shade developed a pretty good muscle cramp during the 25 minutes before I took her back. She was head bobbing so strongly then that I thought she might have an issue with her left front (I do not try to watch my horse as I trot for the vet because if I do I cant do a very good job of keeping a straight line to give the experts a good look) but I asked the group of vets and it was definitely right hind. Otis said she was bobbing her head as she started to put any weight on that foot. He was almost explaining why we could not go on and I somewhat cut him off and said better to pull now than at the finish. I know there are riders in every region that will argue with a pull but it seemed a bit odd that he would feel any need to go into it with ME after I had asked for an extra look before going out from the VC before. He was not the vet looking at Shade but I had thought he had witnessed it.

After I fetched my saddle I asked Otis if he thought it was a hoof bruise- which was in my mind from the 'bobbing her head when she puts any weight on that foot' and only then did I get -probably muscle cramp. The ride was not rocky to make one suspect hoof bruise but Shade was re-shod just on thursday and saturday she had gotten a rock wedged in her shoe about 2 miles before the finish. I felt her being very uneven and Joe Shoeth told me rock in the shoe as I pulled her up. Shade then proceeded to paw a few times and had dislodged it before I even got off her, LOL, but I did then have 'rock' in my mind a bit on sunday.

Well as I told various people offering sympathy for the pull "well if you're going to have a pull, a muscle cramp is one of the least troubling things to have; No gulping worries like a colic, and no wondering if one is looking at a 6 months healing window for a tendon injury. " Shade seemed fine by that evening and is probably wanting me to let the group out to pasture, although she may opt to stay up and get some hay to herself.

politics

I wish there was a way to tell politicians put on the database - I'll vote for you but DONT call me. I don't think I'm particularly weird, perhaps a bit more towards the autistic end of the bell curve wrt to such things than the population at large but I was just short of very rude when a Ken Buck volunteer called me this weekend and I wanted him to win the primary; intend to give another small contribution to his campaign etc but darn it I don't want to get called to the phone for people to try to get me to buy or do anything.

Forcing the republican party more conservative -- I think the tea party people and silent conservatives like myself are making progress. Joe Miller squeaked out a win in AK over incumbent Murkowski. We got Buck rather than Norton here in CO for the senate race. Rubio chased Crist into going independent and is going to win in FL. A business owner is running against Feingold (D) in WI.

A few battles were lost. McCain won in AZ, but his opponent was not that strong. Rossi won in WA over Didier. Rossi has a reputation of being conservative I guess; but aside from my keep contributions local to cut down on begs from out of state pols I am not excited about him at all. The GOP was trying and trying to convince him to run but only after Clint Didier was generating excitement did Rossi who I believe is a 2 time loser in the governors race decide he would jump in. Two time loser and not willing to try until someone else showed voters are ready for a change from the liberal incumbent, how uninspiring. If I lived there I'd vote for him and maybe even kick in a few $ just to help try to stop the P/R/O train wreck but meh.

I had an email from the county GOP on an opportunity to meet Cory Gardener. Aside from my general laziness and non enjoyment of large 'mingle' events I was like "I dont want to meet him and risk not liking him personally when I consider it crucial to get someone other than Betsy Markey representing us." I think its quite possible I would like her in person but she has double-crossed us, posed as a business owner blue dog and then voted with Pelosi whenever her vote was needed to pass a piece of state takeover crap, then introduces conservative sounding bills that had ZERO chance of going anywhere to try to maintain 'blue dog' credentials. Fooled me once and I resent it, I would vote for a total jerk to get her out of there. Hopefully Gardner is not a jerk at all, but I have mistrust of him just for being in the political system for many years.

TIpton leads Salazar -YES! , and Frazier is close to Perlmutter. I am impressed with the energy in emails from both of them. I want to volunteer somehow for Frazier -NOT making phone calls though, LOL. But I want to do something concrete to get that gavel out of Nanzi's hands and while making small contributions feels good I think Frazier needs people to overcome all the facist business/goverment partnership money Perlmutter can tap into as a DNC incumbent.