Thanksgiving: Not just for the day

Clearly I have had a boatload of fun this week because I am now sitting here scratching my head wondering where on earth the whole thing went. How can it possibly be Saturday? Yeesh. Shadow colicked on Tuesday afternoon (defined here for my non-horsey friends), and the week kind of went downhill from there. I was, however, extremely blessed to have had Kimby with me when I found our poor boy laid out by the water trough. Not everyone in your life would be overly keen on helping you push shove drag lug lead (a reluctant 1,100lb drama queen 'round and 'round the pasture for hours on end waiting for him to "go". She was a tremendous help in nudging him forward; all while keeping an eagle eye out for signs of impending poop from inside the danger zone (to the uninitiated: horse toots are toxic ;o) Brave girl.
Long story short: The colic turned out to be the byproduct of an abcess in Shadow's throat that had left him unable to properly swallow. He probably swallowed either a small stick or large, stiff piece of hay which scratched his throat. The inability to swallow properly likely caused him to panic, which led to the colic. DH gave him a shot of Banamine (which I hate using) for pain, and I put some DMSO on the abscess I'd [eventually] found in his throat latch. We left him resting fairly comfortably around 11p.m. He seemed to be feeling a bit better Wednesday morning, and a couple of hours after a second application of DMSO he was [finally!] able to swallow properly on his own. Of course all that stumbling around in the pasture half the night (for an early bird like me, anyway ;o) was apparently all it took for me to come down with a lovely sinus infection. half of Thursday was, most unhappily, spent at the doctor's office. And raspberries to that! :oP
[Photo inset: Shadow and I in shadow (hee) standing by the almost pond bright and early on Wednesday morning. We look weird, don't we?]

Since the post I had originally planned for today did not get written, I'm leaving you here (so to speak, anyway ;o) with an almost [finished] page of my joy journal. Everyone is blessed with gifts and talents from God (1Peter4:10 on the left side of the journal page), for her - or his - own. What's funny is that we don't tend to see and appreciate those things in ourselves; we often seem to focus on someone else's gift that we wish we had instead. To me? The neatest part is the way God often puts people in our lives who share our interests yet come with their own special set of gifts to help round us out better. Example: My friend Lori is gifted with the most marvelous outgoing and friendly nature - something I definitely wish I had. Friendly? Yes, mostly, though I tend toward reserved. Outgoing? Not at all. I am a terrible introvert (though sometimes I hide it well). I have a really hard time walking up to someone I don't know (like new people at church) and introducing myself, so God gave me Lori (though I'm betting this is all news to her *laugh*). All I have to do is follow her around on a given Sunday, and I wind up meeting everyone I don't know "safely". Betcha didn't even know you were being a blessing in that particular direction, did you chickie? :o)
Likewise, Kimby, who is gifted with that wonderful peace I know I've mentioned before. The kind of peace that puts you at immediate ease and always makes you feel like everything will be all right. The perfect complement to my tends to panic spaz-queen self. She also seem to always know just the right thing to say, too (the heifer); and for someone who is constantly eating her own foot, I'm telling you straight up that is a GIFT and then some! And quit rolling your eyes at me too, sistafriend. Heh Heh Heh. Sandy, with her warm fuzzy heart for critters and crazy sense of humor has an altogether different set of blessings that complete our friendship and brighten my day. There are, of course, many others. All of these remarkable people that the Lord has put in my life. What would I do without them? But I digress...
[Photo inset: My almost finished journal page borrowing some of Joanne Fink's Zenspiration with some scripture verses "dangling" down the left-hand side]

Since I'm obviously headed for "short story long" here, *snicker* I'll add that this journal page is about the things that I have a love and/or propensity for and what I'm supposed to be doing with them. A reminder to self, if you will. The right side of the page looks like a scarf, which is something I have been known to crochet. Speaking of... Do you like the yarn ball "o" and hook "t"? I was pretty excited when I saw that the idea actually worked and you can [mostly] tell what they are. The word Art is only partially visible, and horses is right above that. What? You were expecting something else to top the list? (well silly you ;o) They're not necessarily in order of preference, but more how they fit best in the space. Everything gets done in pencil first, then it's made permanent with Staedtler pens. My hand-lettering still needs lots more practice. I haven't decided whether or not to add color to it yet - the scarf, perhaps? Or maybe I should just leave this page in black and white. What do you think?

Have a blessed week everyone, and thanks so much for reading this far!

An Award Winning Week

I hope y'all (er, you all) had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day (and to my friends outside the US, a good old fashioned fantabulous weekend). I wore myself out on Wednesday and Thursday in a flurry of activity and I guess I'm a little slow to bounce back. I had a marvelous day though ;o) You know, between the cancer and all of my other medical misadventures, I have found myself becoming increasingly more thankful for the many blessings in my life every day; not just once a year. I'm thankful for many things that I never even used to consider, or even acknowledge. You know; the small stuff. I will admit to being disappointed in myself (well, okay maybe more like disgusted, ashamed, annoyed, etc. *rolls eyes*) that it took all those doggone medical misadventures to make me see things clearly: with a grateful spirit first and a jaded heart last. I can count it a blessing as well, that the Lord allowed a slow learner like myself such a large learning curve (otherwise known as the refining process). I readily admit that I needed a LOT of refining, and I'm pretty sure I'm nowhere near soup yet either. *grin*

It is for those many misadventures that I find myself in the odd position of being thankful beyond measure to God for allowing me to suffer them. Yeah, I said it: Thank you Lord for my cancer and other medical maladies (and - in case you're wondering - I'm completely sober ;o) Am I nuts? Nope, just finally figured out that "my world" is much improved for having had them. So many things I would not have taken the time for before; now I do. A phone call, a visit, a note, or even a small hand-made gift for friend or family. I would have thought about it of course, maybe even mean to, but I would have missed the opportunity because of a busy schedule and excused myself because there just wasn't enough time. So many little things that I never thought of before; now I do. I did not truly appreciate being blessed with excellent health - why would I? I'd never been seriously ill. I'm sorry it took the loss of that health for me to even notice. Never once did I give thanks that I could walk - why would I? After all, my legs have always taken me wherever I wished to go (at a very rapid pace). Too bad I had to lose the use of them for awhile to realize I should be thankful for them (and you'd better believe I am now - even in their reduced capacity ;o) Hard lessons, yes, but I will remain thankful for them anyway and continue to work at [and pray away on] my Christian self. I'll work harder on making the time and taking the time too, which probably means I'll be late for more stuff (but don't worry; it'll be for a good cause ;o)
I'm sure most of you have read the poem by Red Foley called, "Lord Forgive Me When I Whine" (here). I'm embarrassed to admit that when it came through my inbox waaay back when, I read it and thought, "Wow, we should all have that perspective" before forwarding it to several friends and then forgetting all about it. If you haven't heard of it, it is quite moving and reflects that "attitude of gratitude" we should all aspire to. Several years ago I began starting my days with a thankful prayer for another day/another chance and the request that I might be a blessing to someone that day. It took a little while, but these days that is usually the first waking thought of my mornings, followed by my daily ritual: a cup of green tea with a big blop of honey (Lipton's Blueberry Pomegranate today - yum!), and a chapter in my daily devotional (this year's on my Kindle). The pumpkin candle is, of course, optional. *laugh* That is my Thanksgiving prayer for each of you; that you approach every day you're given with a smile on your face and thanksgiving in your heart - even when you are less than sure that's how you feel inside (it's the effort that counts, after all, and eventually you'll find yourself much happier for it ;o)
Shadow had a terrible bout of colic last night, which left me more than a bit scrambled this morning. Over the course of two hours I gave him two doses of mineral oil, which generated four rounds of poo (not to mention we walked about 650 miles around - and around and around - the pasture). Although each "pit stop" seemed to make him feel better initially, he reverted to miserable a short time later. I did get this shot of the moon during one of our rest stops/intermissions. Thought it was neat, although a full one would have been nice considering the amount of tripping yours truly did bumbling around out there in the pitch dark pasture (and yes I had a flashlight, but that doesn't always help when you have G2 incorporated into your DNA - aka the Graceless Gene ;o) After almost three hours, we ended up giving him a shot of Banamine which we rarely do anymore (it's always my last choice as it is not really good for him). We finally left him when he was resting comfortably, and DD made several trips back out to the pasture before bed to check on him. He was, I am very happy thankful *grin* to report, right back to his sassy self this morning. And what a glorious morning it is...

Isn't that cloud formation awesome? Looks just like frosting, which reminds me of something I find a total piece of cake to be thankful for... Dessert. Oh my, that was bad ;o)

The cake on the left is pumpkin spice (Mom's favorite) and the one on the right is carrot which is DH's favorite (from scratch, of course). Dad's favorite is chocolate, which he'll have at Christmas. The clay basket holds a mixture of candy corn and peanuts, which is unbelievably yummy for those of you who like the taste of Payday candy bars. Yikes! I'd better run...before I'm late for church (again ;o) No worries though; it's for a good cause, right?
I didn't get to the rest of the photos from the fair - stay tuned for them though! As always, thank you for reading this far and have a blessed week everyone!

Farewell Frostbite, Hello Flashflood

Well, the subzero temps seem to be over with but I couldn't resist one last bit of photographic evidence. Rickey had to break up the ice in the Moo Crew's water trough; would you believe it was almost 2" thick? Woo! I'm pretty sure most of the 48 contiguous have experienced a whacked out winter. How about it? What was your weirdest winter day this year? I'd have to say that ours was the morning I walked out to find the ropes on the Girls' doors sticking out in frozen curls. It had rained a bit, then the temperature plunged. Is that bizarre or what?

Our week began with rain-rain-rain and:

While all of the horses got pretty darn dirty, I felt that Champ deserved some kind of recognition for going beyond the call of dirt duty.  What I can't quite figure out, though, is how he managed to keep his tail completely clean...go figure (??)

  

Mid week, Rina showed up for supper with a rather impressive ding on her hip...I have absolutely no idea what happened, although I can speculate that she may have slid in the mud while running and clipped a tree. As leader and the unequivocal Queen of Mean, I am sure that none of her pasture mates would dare to nip at her hip :o)

I kept it small in case any of you are squeamish, but it was a good two inches in diameter. I have to say that I was very proud of Rina for her cooperative behavior in letting me treat it; not only did she turn herself around and line her injury up right in front of me for the medicine, she stood stock still the whole time in an open area and without a halter - what a good girl! I'll do a shameless plug here for Skin Renovator for an awesome product. At $15.00 a tube it's expensive, but it is the best there is for healing wounds quickly. I even found a handy dandy way to recycle the empty container and solve the problem of the missing cap on our gate at the same time (ta-da! :o)

The week came to a melodramatic conclusion with one of Shadow's Blankie Moments...

If you would like to know more about Shadow's dramatic episodes, go to my Squidoo lens on Colic and scroll down to "Cranial Colic". A bit of love and some time with Blankie made for a miraculous recovery (he's such a silly boy!) Oh, and I forgot to squat while taking his picture so Shadow looks strangely disproportionate (oops :oP

How about your animals? Do they have a blankie or special toy that makes it all better? I'd love to hear about it, and so would Shadow. He's rather proud of his alliterated title of "Epic Farms' Eccentric Equine", (but he is secretly afraid of being referred to as "Whatta Weirdo" by certain hard-hearted bipeds). Do tell us please!