May 20th-May 27th, 2006. Such a brief life to have filled with pain and confusion. I just hope that the family in general, and myself in particular, also filled it with love. Godspeed, little fella. We miss you already.… Read more
I hate this. I hate writing this so much.
With Boss running a fever of 103 (very bad news for a little guy), it seems likely that he isn’t going to make it. Reluctantly, we gave Boss up to our vet, who could give him 24-hour care in an effort to save him. The part that sucks is…if Boss makes it through the night, he’s theirs to keep. Now, let me be up front here – I’d rather have him alive, healthy, and living somewhere else with someone else than lose him. After all, that’s the whole point of this horse-breeding business that my wife and her family engage in. It may seem like a massive game of Pokemon with equine genetics, trying to see what combination of bloodlines produces an Arabian horse that conforms to a set of ideals set by humans (and yes, there is indeed a whole can of worms there, possibly a six-pack of such cans, which I just don’t feel like digging into now)…but the end result is, hopefully, a hearty and attractive enough combination of said bloodlines, embodied in a beautiful filly or colt, that someone else will want to buy for a lot of money so they can cross this new specimen with one of their own. The idea was to raise Boss and sell him sooner or later. … Read more
In our last installment, I mentioned that the decision had finally been made to get Hannah away from Boss before she did him grievous bodily harm. We’ve done that, but we may have done it too late. Boss is now on the horse equivalent of baby formula, and a fresh batch has to be mixed up and brought to him every 3 hours. Guess who gets to do that?
Actually, I’m not complaining. I’ve taken off work through the middle of next week just to do this, because someone needs to. I’ve also gotten used to hanging out with the herd in the dead of night – there’s something relaxing about it. Tonight’s been just eerie, because there are some serious thunderstorms to the north – we’re talking way up in southwest Missouri – so we have a clear, starry sky…with tons of lightning. Kinda strange. For most of the foals, this is their first experience with lightning, so it’s a blessing in that they get to see it without hailstones beaning them 10 minutes later. … Read more
Quick, how many horses can you spot in this photo? Look very closely. Both of these mares had babies this week, and now we’re up to our hips in silly fillies, which is just the way we like it. Be forewarned, clicking on the “more” link below will flood your screen with cuteness, because these little horses aren’t just cute, they’re almost full-on kawaii. (Also, be warned if you’re not on broadband, as there are nearly two megs of cute baby pictures within.) … Read more
Remember the miserably pregnant quarterhorse at the farm? She finally foaled out on Thursday, and this baby is huge. Since he was about two weeks overdue, he came out about as big as a two-week-old foal and practically hit the ground running.
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Not much exciting to report from this weekend, just a mish-mash of fairly tame news.
Okay, not necessarily our pregnant mare. But one of the other horses at my in-laws’ farm is just gigantically, that-can’t-be-comfortable pregnant. Even her ankles are just gargantuan. We spent all weekend on “baby watch” and nothing happened. Well, I suppose they say a watched horse never boils…or something like that. Poor thing. As for our mare, she’s bagging up and making milk, so we’re mere weeks away. Hopefully she has a better time than this poor quarterhorse.
We’re expecting what’s starting to look like a doozy of a bad weather event this Thursday; considering all the nasty crap that has come at us from the sky in the past month before it was spring (when the conditions for bad weather are supposedly even more abundant), the next couple of months have me a bit worried. To put it mildly. I think I worry about these things more now that I’m a homeowner, which really, if I think about it, doesn’t make much sense – rented home, my home, doesn’t matter, if either one gets blown away then I’m screwed.
I did something stupid today and followed a link to ThinkGeek.com (there, you can share in my misery), a site which is loaded with tons of delicious gadgetry that I’d love to festoon my house with. Well, okay, I’d love to festoon my house with these things if not for the fact that my wife would then have to put up with them, and would probably cease putting up with me shortly thereafter. So I do a lot of browsing, a lot of drooling, and a lot of not buying. (I originally went looking to see if they had any of these.) Some of the items (an LED scrolling text message belt buckle or name tag, an ant farm made out of NASA’s malleable aerogel material) I can live without, but some of the other goodies – goodies, it must be said, of roughly equal usefulness to society – I drool over. I think my current favorite is the “Tix” digital clock. I think that would look mighty fine and BBC-budget-futuristic sitting next to my HAL 9000 faceplate. 😆 Yes, I’ve got a HAL-9000 prop at my desk at home. That’s about as much of a concession I’ll ever make in the direction of transforming my game room into a replica of the Enterprise bridge or any other fictional setting. But a similarly-shaped item with random patterns of blinky lights that also serve as a clock? Yes! Must have. (And this little baby is drool-worthy too.) But alas, they’ll have to wait until the budget allows for such things.
That’s really all I can think of at the moment; I’d tell you about my weekend gaming, but I’m sure you’ve heard enough about Dune 2000 in the past month. 😛… Read more
Shel Hannah’s new filly was born on April 20, 2001: Nadira Kanz Hannah (“beautiful treasure of Hannah”).
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