There's a fungus among us!

Poor Prisoner Y! In the space of less than a week, he has gone from a carefree over-stuffed appalachian sofaback gelding to a fungus covered, sore boy. It started out with one scabby sore on his pastern. Within 36 hours, his legs were covered up with it. He gets photosensitized to the dew, and develops these horrible sores on his legs and muzzle. Poor boy!

Last year when he developed this, I had dislocated my knee, and he was such a hand full that my hero, Joleen offered to take him and treat him. He had also injured his neck/head/back/whatever, and was a real pill to try to do anything with since the vet, in his infinite wisdom, would not listen to me and ended up roughing the boy up. Asshole.

Anyway, back to today... I mixed up a fresh batch of wonder goo. It has baby butt cream, antibiotic, anti fungal, and anti itch meds in it. You slather it on and it is healed up within a week. Simply amazing, and waaay cheaper than the vet's version. After they ate, I let them in to mow the grass in the feed area. I caught him without any fuss, and led him outside to the tree I'd picked to tie him up. I had already hung up a hay bag with a flake of really nice alfalfa in it. I tied his happy ass to the tree and left him there. I went to visit with Prisoner X for a bit. She was happy to get a belly scrub :) Then I sat in my truck for a bit and just let him figure out that he wasn't going anywhere. When he settled down to eat hay, I took the pot-o-goo over and started slathering it on. Front legs were no problem at all. He got lots of pats and some cookies. His back legs were so sore that he was not happy about me rubbing on the goo, but he stood pretty well. I hit a sore spot, and he pulled back and then pushed. When he pushed, he caught a fingernail, and thought I had stuck him with something. That caused a minor blow up and a tiny bit of thrashing about. Fortunately, he remembered that thrashing while tied will get him nowhere, and he stopped. All told, it took about 15 minutes and we were done. No drama, no fuss. I was so pleased with him. He was such a pill last year that I was expecting the worst, but was determined not to lose my temper, and not to give up. I gave him a good grooming, which he loved, a few more cookies, and left him to eat some more hay. He stood quietly with a leg cocked and munched away. After another little while, I untied him, shot the wormer in his mouth, and let him back out with The Nanny.

I am so pleased with him. Just when I worry that he is going to be a total dick, he surprises me and is a gentleman. Good BOY!

Denial

As much as I have tried very hard to deny it, today was my Mother's birthday.

Happy Birthday Mom. We all miss you so much.

Love,

Me

Drive is done

YAY! My new driveway and walks are done. We poured both of the walks yesterday. I think they look great.

This is the walk down the side of the drive to the porch. Bill is not 100% happy with it, but I think it's great. He is such a perfectionist :-P

Here it is going to the street and the mail box.

The sidewalks and borders on the driveway were stamped without any color. What you see is the release we use. We are going to seal the plain broomed concrete fields later this week. Then we will wait about a month or so and we will stain the walks and borders the same color as the mailbox post. This is going to look cool.

This is the sidewalk on my side of the drive. Bill made the curb pretty high, so I can't jump off the side any more. His big old avalanche hogs the driveway, and he makes fun of me for driving on the grass. He can bite me!

Here is my StampMonkey seal of approval!

I can't wait till it is stained. It is going to be very pretty.

We had a visitor yesterday. He was enjoying the new porch!

HRH Blondie the Bodacious

Here she is sitting on her throne, looking serene. She is so cute :) She loves sitting up on boxes. She under the table where Bill is looking at plans.
 Here she is mad. She wants to know who stole her nose??? She is possibly the cutest dog ever.

Oh dear lord!

It is fly season here, in spades. The wet, wet spring/summer have made it possible for the flies to breed like mad. It drives the horses insane. Lots of buckfarting and running like crazy things. It can be dangerous to go out in the pasture with them if they big flies are biting. This is why they get so crazy. It *hurts* when these suckers bite! I would freak out too! This one had been swatted a couple of days before, so it was a little dried up...it was bigger when we swatted it.

Twenty One Thousand Days...

Well, I haven't really waited that long, it just seems like it. It is however, one of my favorite songs. I have waited 21 years for my new driveway and front porch. The plumber's sink always drips, and the cobler's children have no shoes.....

Since we have decided to move, we really needed to put in a new driveway. It will make the house sell much faster in this neighborhood, and it looks pretty spiffy (Hi Joleen :)).

Here are pictures from before, during and after.

Here is the driveway as Bill is tearing it out. Skip was tied up, so Bill got to have a loader rodeo!

Woohoo :)

Look at that sucker buck!

I gotta love him, but my husband is the most anal retentive person alive. See how neatly he had to stack the concrete? He fussed with it more stacking it than he did tearing it out. All in all he had a blast. Of course he vehemently denies this, but I know better.

This is a big assed pile of roots that we had to tear out from under the old drive, and the place the new sidewalk is going to be placed. Sheesh!

Here is my work truck. Pretty cool huh? Oh here are some of the tools we use. The one I use the most is the corrugated float in front. It gets pretty heavy after a while :)

This is our motley crew. Here are Jorge and Francisco, doing what they do best...watching us work. The other one is Pedro. He is a good guy, and works pretty hard. It has been a sad week for Pedro. His father passed away. He wanted to come to work though. I guess it keeps his mind off of his father :(

Here is the front porch ready to be placed. I didn't get there fast enough to take a real before pic. The porch was about 5 feet deep and was covered by the overhang. The new one is the bomb. It is big enough to have a small table and chairs! The drive is ready to pour too. We poured the top section of the drive and the porch at the same time.

Now with the concrete placed.

Here they are stamped. We only stamped the borders, and left the fields plain. This neighborhood is very plain, and if we had stamped the whole driveway, it would have been way too much. As it is, it will look very fancy when it is finished. Bill did an excellent job designing it. It is fancy enough to attract attention, but not too overwhelming for the house. The stones on the porch are cantilevered and will look like actual rocks laid on the porch, and then grouted. Coolness. It is very strange to have to develop new habits after 21 years. Suddenly there are no steps into the door. I almost fell down the first time I went out the door! The dogs would not come out for a while. It was funny.

The stones on the border of both the driveway and the porch will be chemically stained to match our mailbox post. It is really going to make it special. It is probably too fancy for this neighborhood, but I believe it will make the house sell much faster.

Here is the approach that kicked our collective asses. The mud came hot, and it just flat blew up on us. That means it got hard WAY too fast, but Bill saved my ass again. He's cool :)

Here is evidence that I really do work, and also that I really need to go on a diet. Ugh.

Monday we will set up and pour the sidewalks on either side of the driveway. They will be stained to match the borders. Almost done! YAY!!!! Who would think something as mundane as a driveway would be so exciting??

Bax fix(ed)

I know there are a lot of Baxter fans out there (ha), so here is an update on him, and of course the Nanny.

Remember the slash on his hock? Well that is all healed up, and it left the smallest of scars. Here is a before and after. I think it looks great compared to the day it happened. I am happy with it.

You can see it better if you click on it for the larger version. I should have lightened it up, but I didn't think about it.

Here are the prisoners upon my arrival at the holding facility. Prisoner X, aka The Nanny, is absolutely positive that she is sorely abused and will surely starve before the grub is dished up.

While Prisoner Y, aka Baxter Black, is grinning, trying to show his willingness to cooperate with the warden if it will make dinner appear faster.

Prisoner Y had a bit of a temper tantrum as dinner was being served. For some reason, he thought that he should eat first. The warden disabused him of this notion, and he rebelled. A thorough buck-fart session ensued, and when that didn't work, he decided it would be better to eat second than expend any more energy. Thank goodness! Prisoner X wanted nothing to do with the insurrection, and kept a wide berth until slop was served. All was right with the world once the feeders were filled.

He is so exhausted after his belligerant outburt that he can hardly chew his slop

Here they both are showing off their summer coats. Prisoner X looks pretty normal. She is just a lighter shade of red than usual.

Prisoner Y is doing his best imitation of a smutty buckskin, in an effort to disguise himself. He is hoping for an escape opportunity.

He sees an escape opportunity and rushes to the unguarded gate, only to find his big fat ass will not fit through the opening. Dammit!

This picture is going to be on the Baxter wall in my new house (when I get a new house). It's such a classic hunter type picture. He can be very photogenic, unlike his warden :) Ain't he purdy?

Here is why he would not survive long in the wild. He does this all the time. A deaf horse should not eat with it's eyes closed. I have watched him graze this way... he just moseys around with his eyes closed. It is fun to sneak up on him. He jumps straight up in the air. Just don't sneak up on his butt end, or you could get a face full of foot!

I am sad to report that both prisoners have been sentenced to (a) life... of bliss....