Need = Motivation

Marin spent some time with Julie Miller, tonight, practicing barrels, poles, keyhole, loping methods, and all sorts of other fun horsemanship skills. Audra did NOT... much to her dismay... weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth type of dismay! When we came back to pick Marin up from Julie's, Audra was able to ride Buck for a few minutes, but he was so ready to be done working that he kept running her to the arena gate... full gallop... no stirrups... six year old girl! I would have thought she'd be bawling her eyes out on run #1 (she waited until run #3), but all she said was, "Buck just wants to run!" This girl's a tough cookie! (next time I'll get pictures of her... she's a doll!) Marin is, no doubt, counting down the hours until the next opportunity to ride. I like to call that "motivation"... for completing school work... chores... just about anything I need her to do. Life is much simpler when the kids are in LOVE with a hobby. I just need to figure out how to help shift Gerrit's hobby from "girlfriend" to "horses"... hmmm.....

It's Not Every Day...

It's not every day that you find a tick the size of a raisin on the cat. This little blood sucker was HUGE! I usually just smash 'em between two rocks, when I find them, but I had to show Kevin the size of this fellow. Audra took him to Kevin in the bottom of a mason jar, who of course said "gross", and quite frankly, I didn't think more about it.... until tonight, when I found the mason jar on the counter with NO tick raisinette inside. I sure hope someone disposed of him and that I won't be plucking Sir Sucks a Lot off of any of us!

It's not every day that you find two perfectly wonderful pairs of horse riding boots at the thrift store... that FIT! I found Marin and I some great roper style lace up cowboy boots at the D.I. and we broke them in at 4H tonight. Marin and Audra are loving 4H and learned about barrels and poles this session. Our friend, Larry Bowen, and his daughter, Julie, keep telling us what naturals the girls are on their horses. I'm amazed that Audra has no fear at all... she controls that horse just fine, trots and lopes and all that jazz! Marin's first competition will be on June 16th, so we'll be practicing hard for the next few weeks to get her ready. She's counting down the days, I assure you!

It's not every day that you meet a lizard that plays checkers and yahtzee. Well, Audra says he does, at least. Gerrit brought home a baby lizard last night and Audra saved him from the deathly fate of 'snake food'. While running our errands today, Audra instructed Kevin to be sure to play checkers and yahtzee with Lizzy, so he wouldn't get bored while we were away. Cute...

Oh, and one last thing... It's not every day that you get to find out just HOW your children chose you as their parents, up in Heaven. According to Audra, she was standing in one line and we were standing in another when she pointed at us and said, "I want that family." Of course, she said she had a tag pinned on her that read, "From Heavenly Father" and that she picked us because we looked good and nice. So, in case you were wondering how that happened... now you know! ;0)

Pictures posted are of Audra and Vanessa... new hair color for the girls tonight and a haircut for Gerrit, but no pictures of he or Marin, unfortunately.

Something Snakey This Way Comes...

Check out this beauty we found yesterday on the road in the hills behind our house... Awesome! He is at least three feet long... possibly more... and totally sweet. Fun, fun, fun!

Oh Baby... Part 2

I promised the rest of the story, and so here we go! For those of you that receive my blog via email, I apologize if you did not receive Part 1. I had put a stop on the email feed while I adjusted some settings on my postings, and forgot to restart the emails! If you'd like to read Part 1, simply click on my blog address and check 'er out :)

My body had had enough yesterday morning at around 5:00 a.m., so I left Marin asleep in the barn and ventured into the house to rouse Kevin from his sleep. "Could you take over for a couple of hours?" I asked, and of course, he was more than willing. He felt bad that I was the one carrying the burden of the night shift, but I really needed him in the house helping the kids get to bed and getting his own rest, knowing I'd need someone rested to take over for me the next day! We swapped places, and before I knew it, Kevin was standing at the foot of the bed with tears in his eyes. I glanced at the clock, which read 7:00, and said, "What happened? Did we lose him?" It's not often that we see our giant of a man brought to tears and I was alarmed. Kevin proceeded to tell me that although the baby was still alive, he was not sucking off of the bottle and was so limp and floppy when he was sleeping, that Kev was afraid we were, indeed, losing him. We called the vet.

Kevin put the trailer on the truck while I showered, and we set off with Bows in the trailer and the foal on my lap. It's not every day that you see a horse standing up on the seat of a truck bench, or asleep on it's owner's lap, for that matter! Poor little baby was so exhausted from lack of nutrition and the obvious stress of a night spent with a nervous mom and owner prodding him with bottles and bowls and all sorts of activity. By the time we reached the animal hospital, Bows was throwing a fit in the trailer... you would have thought we had a clydesdale in there, with all the racket, instead of a 30" miniature mare! One universal element, amongst all of God's creatures, is the passion of a mother's love for her newborn. We were hearing AND seeing (never thought a small mare like that could rock the trailer) that passion in it's full form!

Amidst the racket and impatience of Bows, quite the opposite could describe the INACTIVITY of the foal. I lifted him up off of my lap to stand him up and keep him alert, but he simply collapsed on my lap, as if dead. The peace I had been blessed with all night and morning, an assurance from Heavenly Father that everything was going to be okay, whether or not we had a live colt to raise and enjoy, was abruptly gone at the sight of his seemingly lifeless body. I whipped him up in my arms and bailed out of that truck in an instant, calling for Kevin to hurry and get me in the examination room, asap. The door to the horse exam room opened up and we hurried in. I gave the foal to Kevin and listened as the doctor gave us a grim prognosis. Because the baby was so comatose and unresponsive, the doc told us that there was pretty much a 95% to 100% chance he wouldn't make it, no matter what we did to preserve his life. I nodded my head, with tears in my eyes, looked over to Kevin and put my hand under the foal's chin. That's when it happened...

The foal jerked his head up, alert as a rooster at the crack of dawn, stretched his legs under him (he was still in Kevin's arms!) and seemed to be telling us, "Hold on a minute... I can hear you and I want to live!" The doctor was astonished, as were Kevin and I. Kev set him down on the cement floor of the exam room and the little colt proceeded to check out his surroundings, found his mother's teat and started nursing. Holy Shmoly! At this point, the doc went from ready to pull the plug, to a brand new prognosis of, "Maybe this colt isn't as bad off as I thought. If he's alert and healthy, and not sick, as I first thought, I think he'll make it." We gave the go-ahead for a plasma transfusion to ensure a full antibody count in his blood and left the little guy and his mother in a stall at the animal hospital. The plasma for the transfusion had to be of the equine variety, which is not easy to come by, but the vet found some in Ogden, and set off to get it. Before the doctor left, however, he wanted to make sure a transfusion was absolutely necessary, considering the cost. He did a blood test to check the antibody levels in the foal's blood, and we were all pleased to find that our efforts in milking the colostrum from Bows and bottle feeding it to the baby were not in vain. He had at least partial antibody protection in his blood stream from our efforts, but a 50% chance of living healthy just wasn't enough assurance for us. We wanted him to have the best start possible and okayed the transfusion. Kevin and I went home, crashed on the bed for a moment, and awaited a call from the doctor.

Five hours and five hundred dollars later, we brought the horses home. Mom and baby are doing fine and spent the night on their own! What a miracle... Miracle? Sounds like a good name for the newest member of our Funny Farm Family :)

Photos of Baby Bottle Feeding

To Milk a Horse?!

I would have never even thought about the prospect of milking a horse, let alone a miniature one with miniscule teats, but that just goes to prove that life is FULL of things that I've never even thought of! Our newest addition to the Funny Farm, a little colt out of our mini mare, Bows, had a traumatic first day... and so did the owners!

We were thrilled to find that our concerns about a possibly complicated delivery, with this first time mother, were unfounded. Bows delivered her foal with no assistance (we didn't know she was even doing it) and proved to be a natural little mother. Unfortunately, her teats are small and the baby couldn't wrap his little tongue around them. It wasn't until midday that we realized that he wasn't getting latched on and getting the colostrum he so desperately needs to ward off infection. Baby horses get no immunity from placental transfer; only through passive transfer through colostrum. A foal who receives no immunoglobulins antibodies has a 75% chance of falling ill; one who receives partial antibodies still suffers a 50% chance.

Realizing the importance of this colostrum, I worked out a way to extract it from Bows, a process that she was not particularly fond of. The foal suckled off a bottle for a time, and then we tried bucket feeding, which seemed like the best way to go... until we tried it the next time 'round. I started bottle feeding the baby at about 4:00 p.m. and continued on every 15 to 40 minutes until 5:00 a.m. this morning. We threw a couple of bean bags down on the floor of the horse shelter and I settled in for a night of milking, feeding and keeping warm baby. Marin stayed the night with me and was able to sleep... lucky girl! It was windy and chilly and a bit on the uncomfortable side, but what else could we do? My discomfort through the night was a whole lot less than the discomfort we would feel upon finding our darling colt dead in the morning. It was worth it.

The rest of the story is coming in the next post...

Thoughts on Memorial Day

Since visiting the cemetary today to honor our deceased loved ones, I've been rolling this question around in my mind: "Where will WE be buried and should we reserve a spot right now?" I told Kevin that it would probably be an act of kindness to our kids and other family members if we reserved us a space at the Bountiful Cemetary, where my parents have plots, and I'm assuming Kevin's parents will, as well. Then our kids can honor US in a more timely and efficient manner. How's that for control freak? Planning out my children's Memorial Day visitations for them, so they don't have to be inconvenienced?! I need help, I'm afraid... serious help. Kevin says that just as a "getcha back" after we're deceased, kind of thing, we should buy plots as far away as possible and make them DRIVE to see us... we'll show them, hmm? Actually, that would probably only serve to make our grave stones the weediest and least visited of any in the cemetary. People would pass by our markers and say, "Poor folks with the weird last name... No one loves them or even takes care of their graves!" I guess we'll just have to wait a few more years and see where we end up living the majority of our time together. Bountiful will always be home (Woods Cross for my hubby), so we can't go wrong putting in our reservation there, but if we end up living out the rest of our lives in Beaver Dam, it might be fitting to save us a spot here. After all, the Beaver Dam cemetary is only about three hundred feet from our back door!

Posted are a few pictures from our cemetary visit today. It was nice to be with family and share stories of Grandma and Grandpa Francis, Aunt Viv and Matt Warner, my cousin. After my folks and Mike & Carolyn treated us all to lunch at Taco Time, Kev and I, with the kids (minus Vanessa who was camping with a friend) went to the van Uitert's house in WX, spent a few hours visiting there and enjoyed a nice barbequed dinner of hamburgers and hot dogs with all the fixins. It was a beautiful day to spend with our families and remember, with fondness, the extraordinary lives of our loved ones.