Oh By Golly, Have a Holly Jolly Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!!! I hope you all get to spend it with your two legged and four legged family and friends!

Since the dogs had to dress up in Christmas gear, it seemed only fair to include the horses in on the action. So, out came the Santa hats.



Tabasco, Shoni, and Sundance soaked up all of the attention and really hammed it up for the camera.



Pebbles could care less either way.



Sweetie also enjoyed all of the attention. At least until she forgot that she had a Santa hat on. It slowly slid down her face and she turned tail and ran. She wouldn't come near me again unless I hid the Santa hat behind my back. Silly mare.

Tabasco distracted by my glove (that he stole from my pocket).

"Hey, I'm over here. I need the attention now."

Verry pretty, Shoni girl.

Happy Holidays everyone! : )

Santa's Elves

In lieu of the holiday season, Bailey and Ruby try to get into the holiday spirit.

"Wake me when it's over."

"What do you mean, it's almost Christmas?!"

"I'm not having the fun you promised me..."

"I'm over worked and under paid!"

"Seriously, get this thing off of me!"

"I know where you sleep."

"I'll be keeping an eye on you."

Yikes!

Almost two months since my last post. I'd say I'm long over due for an update.

We've been super busy here.

We put up fencing around the panels.

Dad installed an automatic waterer (yey!) and brought in some loads of class 5 rock to help with some of the mud problems that we had in October and November.

We treated Sweetie with Xxterra on the sarcoid behind her ear and also on the one inside of her ear.

The sarcoid behind the ear turned black, dried up, and fell off. She has a little white spot behind the ear where it was.

The sarcoid inside the ear will need a second treatment. It also stopped oozing once we applied the xxterra, it turned black, and half of it fell off. It did not bother Sweetie at all applying the ointment even with it being an open sarcoid.

I will try and take some updated pictures of the sarcoids this weekend.

And the last update is SPIDERSWEB got a long overdue face lift.

I hope everyone and their critters are staying warm and enjoying the holidays!

Xxterra

Dr Lang came out today to look at the growth in Sweetie's ear. He was pretty disappointed when he saw it and how irritated/raw it is.

He confirmed that it is indeed another sarcoid.




Above: you can see the swollen lump on the outside of her ear

Below: shows the growth on the inside of the ear


Below: Cropped photo of the growth (red area) inside the ear

Dr Lang had a few different options to try.

• The first would be to attempt to surgically remove the sarcoid. This would be difficult because of the location and lack of extra skin to stitch it up.
• Option number two is to surgically remove the ear.
• Behind door number three is Xxterra. Xxterra is a cream that we would apply to the sarcoid daily for four days. We would then watch it for 10-20 days. After that time, if needed, we would repeat the process.

The Xxterra appears to be the best option at this time but I think I will be contacting the vets in Colorado who created the product to ask for advise before we actually use it. On the bottle it says, "Note: If sarcoid is located by cartilage in ear, a hole could occur." This made me nervous with the sarcoids on her head because they were close to the ear (which is why we had those surgically removed instead) but this sarcoid is actually inside her ear. I would hate to leave her with a gaping hole, but I'm sure it's better than any of these other options.

A quick post

Last Saturday Mom and I drove to Sioux Falls, SD to see Grandma for her birthday and spend the weekend with her.

Saturday night after we took Grandma out for her birthday we drove down to The Falls. They were supposed to be lit up in pink lights for Breast Cancer Awareness. We got there around 7 and drove around for a while. It was pretty chilly that night so there were not a lot of people which was nice. I walked around a little and took a few pictures. We only stayed about a half hour and left before the falls were actually lit up- I think the lights were going to come on around 8 or 8:30.

My cameras and I were not getting along so most of the pictures were either dark or blurry, but I was able to get a few good clear ones.

We have an appointment tomorrow afternoon with the vet to come out and look at Sweetie again. The sarcoids that were surgically removed from behind her ear are starting to grow back and now we noticed a large growth on the inside of her ear. The growth is rather large and raw looking. Even looking at her ear on the outside it looks swollen where the growth is. I'm not sure what we're going to be able to do about it, so we'll see what the vet thinks.

On a side note, I found a video from a comedian that made me laugh so I thought I would share.

The Weekend Ends with a Bang

Have I told you lately how much I hate panels?

Today was supposed to be a nice relaxing end to the weekend, but the universe had other plans.

Tabasco decided it would be a good idea to stick his head through the panels to either itch himself or try and get a better look at some grass sitting outside the pen.

I'm not sure if his head was too close to one of the vertical bars or he just didn't turn it enough, but his head got stuck. And he panicked. He started back pedaling and pulling the panel across his pen, then he lost his balance and fell.

After he fell he tried to get up and made it worse. He ended up with his head stuck in the panel, his neck stretched out, a front leg through the panel and the bottom of the panel over his butt. You could tell it was effecting his breathing and Mom said his eyes were starting to roll. Mom and Dad ended up unhooking the pins on each side of the panel and letting it fall towards Tabasco (we were still holding it so it didn't really fall). Tabasco was able to detangle his leg and head from the panel and roll back onto his feet. Luckily Tabasco remained calm once we were there and working on getting him released or it could have been bad for all of us.

Tabasco has a few scrapes on his face where he pulled the hair off but thankfully nothing serious. It scares me to know of the different outcome we could have had if this had happened while we were at work or if only one of us were home.

I'm so thankful he is okay, I don't know what I would do without him.

Look ma no tack!

Lately when I have been going out to do chores I've been given a few opportunities to work with Tabasco.

He will come up behind me when I am climbing over the panels and he is lined up so nice I can't resist getting on and going for a ride.

One night I was sitting on Tabasco with our backs to the house and Mom came out on the porch and saw us and started hollerin' about how bad we were. It was hilarious because we both stopped and turned our heads the same direction to see which one of us was in trouble!

Shoni will line herself up next to the panels too but as soon as you put your leg over her back she steps away from you or turns and faces you. When I'm on Tabasco she gets jealous and will give me the silent treatment. After "riding" Tabasco for about 30 minutes she finally decided she wanted attention too so she came over to be pet on while I was sitting on him. Then she put her head over Tabasco's back and behind me and rested her head against me. Awe! It was really sweet.

That night Tabasco actually walked about 2 yards (from the trough to the shelter) and didn't say boo about me being on his back. I'm so proud of him and how he handles everything.

Mom was nice enough to come out with me and play photographer while I climbed on Tabasco a different night at feeding time. Thanks Mom!!!! :D

Vacation Fun- part1

I have been working on this post since 8/6, so I'm going to attempt to finally get it done!

This year for vacation we decided to go to Sturgis. We meaning Mom, Dad, and I. Mom and Dad have gone a couple of times but this was my first year going.

On Saturday night we took the three dogs and the cat to a boarding facility/Doggie Daycare so we wouldn't have to worry about them while we were gone. It was really hard leaving them and we called to check in a couple of times. : )

We took the truck and hooked up the camper. The camper is also a toy hauler so Mom and Dad loaded their Harley's in the back. We drove the 8 hours to the camp ground in Belle Fourche. The camp ground was really nice and quite. It had a large bathroom with about 10 shower stalls and 10 toilet stalls. They served free coffee in the mornings and they had a big greeter dog to love on while I was missing mine.

We arrived Sunday night and unloaded the bikes. We ran and got a bite to eat then went back to the campground to rest up for the next day.

Monday we spent the entire day in Sturgis. There was lots and LOTS of walking, shopping, and of course BIKES! People warned me about how rowdy it would be and about all of the nudity but it wasn't like that the day we were there (thank goodness!). It was pretty mellow and mostly older people around.

Monday night we rode the bikes to a bar called The Broken Spoke Saloon to see FOGHAT. It was a free concert and it was really good (didn't know too many of their songs though...). The bar had 3 floors, a balcony, and you drove your bike through the bar to get to the parking lot (weird but way cool!). They had a bike show before the concert where they were bragging about how loud a bike was and how fast it could go and they burned a rubber streak by the bar. Made it stink for a while too. Good thing the place was so open! The bar had great music, and pretty bar tenders dancing and serving drinks (reminded me of the Coyote Ugly movie), and the best part about the bar was the FLAME THROWERS!!!

Tuesday we drove out to Deadwood and did more walking and shopping! lol There were tons of bikes in Deadwood too. We took a tour of the famous Adams House (I'll get to this in my next post). After we shopped till we dropped we went back to the camp ground and I tried on some of the Sturgis tank tops I got in Deadwood and found the size medium was a little too small. After a short nap we drove back to Deadwood and I was able to exchange my shirts for a bigger size.

I was trying to take pictures while we were driving and at one point the batteries died, so we stopped at a stop sign in the boonies so I could get the batteries out of mom's saddlebag. I got some good pictures of mom and dad too! : )

Next we drove back to The Broken Spoke Saloon for another concert, this time it was .38 SPECIAL! On the way to the bar we got stuck in stop and go traffic. Then it started pouring rain. Dad and I had our leather chaps and coats on and mom only had a hooded jacket and her chaps. There was no where to pull over to get out of the rain and traffic didn't stop enough to get her jacket. After about an hour in the freezing stinging rain we finally made it to the bar and found out we had to pay a cover charge. It was only $10 per person but we thought it was going to be another free concert. We paid the cover and got in. The concert rocked! I was also able to get a couple of videos of one of the flame jugglers(?) this night.

If you are ever in the area and want to check out a neat bar I highly recommend this one. It may be in the boonies but it has great entertainment. The main reason I love this bar though is that the owner came up on stage both nights offering to call a taxi for anyone too drunk to drive home and he would let you park your bike in the bar until the morning. He also offered to pay for your taxi if you couldn't afford it.

Wednesday we loaded the bikes back into the camper and headed back home. Three days was definitely long enough!! : )