It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas..."

I think someone forgot to tell mother nature that Spring is here and it's almost April! Then again maybe the snow is our early April Fools prank... all I know is that we don't need any more moisture right now and it should be sent to the drier states that want it.

The weathermen are predicting at least 8 inches of snow by Wednesday...

...I think I will just stay in bed with these two!

Whiskers

In 1998 my friend and I went to her neighbors house to pick out two free kittens. According to my friend her mom said it was okay for us to pick up the kittens and keep them at her house.

My friend picked out a midnight black boy kitty and I picked out a grey and white girl kitty. We named them Whiskers and Boots.

After a few months of keeping them at her house her mom said they had to go. Turns out that my friend had told her mom that they were going to keep them for a few weeks then they were going to come live with me. I tried to talk my mom into bringing them home and got a resounding "NO!".

Luckily I had another friend who loved cats and said she'd take them in for a little while. Of course that only lasted for so long as well and her dad said they had to go. I stayed the night at her house one weekend and came up with a game plan to sneak them home.

When my mom arrived to pick me up from my friends, I stuck both kittens in a huge backpack that I had. It was only a 10 minute drive back to my house so I figured they'd be fine and I'd be able to pull this off. I placed them in the back of the blazer then climbed into the passenger seat. Mom asked why I was being so weird. "Who me?! I'm not being weird."

We only drove a couple of minutes before my mom said, "Why is there a cat in my backseat?!" and pulled onto the shoulder. We flipped around and drove the cats right back to my friends house.

After a week or so pleading with my parents and telling them about my friends dad threatening to throw them out my parents agreed that we could take them in and find them new homes. My parents ended up falling in love with both of them but got fed up with Boots because she was always piddling on the bathroom rug. My mom's friend ended up giving her a forever home.

Whiskers ended up staying with us and got neutered and declawed in the front. He was great friends with all of the dogs (I'm convinced he thinks he is one) but his best friend was our german shepherd Gypsy. They always loved to snuggle on the couch together for naps.

Whiskers has always had a weight issue. You never really notice it until he lays down though because he has a gut. He was put on a science diet for less active cats but still didn't lose the weight.

Later last year he was starting to look pretty lean and healthy. I was thinking it was due to the move into a bigger house with more stairs and that he was getting more exercise. Within the last couple of months he has gotten even thinner to the point of feeling his spine when you pet him. I made a vet appointment with him to have some blood work done.

The vet looked at his teeth, took his temperature, and listened to his heart. He told me Whiskers has a noticeable heart condition but he seems to have adapted well to it. My stomach sank when I heard that, it was like everything with Spider all over again. The vet said that he couldn't do the blood work yet due to the fact that Whiskers had eaten that day. I paid the $85 vet bill and was told that I would have to schedule another appointment to have the blood work done. I was pretty irked by that because the whole reason I brought him in that day was for the blood draw and they knew that when I made the appointment and no one told me that he would have to fast.

The appointment was put off for a couple of weeks and then Whiskers started acting a little under the weather. Mom took him to a different vet close by her work and they drew his blood. They ran several tests and came to the conclusion that he has Kidney disease. They kept him over the weekend and ran fluids in him and gave him meds. By Monday he was refusing to eat so the vet said it would be best if he came home to see how he does here.

He now has to eat medicated food (can only buy it from the vet) and he also gets two dime sized pills a day every day for the rest of his life. We have another appointment for him in a week to see how he's doing and where his blood count it. Poor little guy, but at least we know what's going on now and can do something about it.

Three posts combined

Not too much going on here on the horse front. We were dealing with the snow from the blizzard but it has been warm here and melting. Now we have MUD!!!!!!!!! Yuck.

Mom and I walked up to do chores the other night and were sinking in the mud, and getting mugged by horses. Not fun when your feet are stuck with one foot pointing one way and the other going a different direction, buckets of oats in your arms, and horses circling you. Would make for a funniest videos though! Especially if you got knocked over and your feet popped out of your boots!!! :D

Luckily we are better prepared this year and the horses (the big ones anyway) have more room to roam so it's not as bad. The babies pen is still mostly frozen so no mud there... yet.

I am itching for dry solid ground so that I can start working with the horses regularly and get back into riding. I am hoping to be able to take some of the horses to different fun days around here this summer/fall and also take them trail riding with my horse friends. I am looking forward to exposing them to more things but we have a lot of work to do before then. Lots of despooking and refresher training.

While I was out taking pictures of the horses I thought the sky looked really neat with the colors and the clouds (the picture is not the same as it was in person) so I walked across the babies pen to stand on what's left of the snow pile and snapped a few pictures. I heard some noise behind me and turned around and saw.......

... BABIES!!!!!!!!!!! lol These guys crack me up and the looks on their faces are priceless. "Hey, what are we lookin at!?" This is one of the things that I absolutely love about these guys. They are so in tune with you and love human contact. I'm not sure if it is the same with most other mustangs but I know that these guys will stop eating their hay and come over to see what you are up to and seem to enjoy spending time with humans.

Yucky Blizzards!

Just when you think spring is around the corner and it will be green soon, you end up with a blizzard!

Then they have some roads closed until 9:30ish (if you get caught driving on closed roads you get a ticket) so I decided it is not worth it to make the trek into work (it's a 45 minute drive on a good day) and called in. They told me how short staffed they are and that when the roads open they would like me to come in.

Seriously?

I just can't figure it out- they said blizzard icy roads NO TRAVEL ADVISED and we're expected to endanger ourselves and possibly get stranded some where (or worse) with no help just for a few hours of work? Now it would be one thing if I lived in town and didn't have as far to go but the highways here are wide open and get huge snow drifts that blow on the road (see previous post about spinning out into the ditch). I guess I will play it by ear but it's just not worth the risk to me.

Too bad I can't find a decent paying work from home job! :) Who knows, maybe some day.

Decisions... decisions...!

My latest horse obsession has been Stacy Westfall and her bareback bridleless riding (video below). I have been debating whether or not to purchase her DVD set. They are a little pricey for me- though not as bad as some- but my main concern is if her training will fit us. The only horse trainer that I am able to follow right now is Clinton Anderson. I'm not big on Chris Cox, Parelli, or Frank Bell (all of whom are popular among most other horse folks) because they're dull, complicated, or weird.

I really enjoyed seeing Stacy on The Ellen DeGenerous show and she seemed like she was really down to earth. When she coached Ellen she didn't look too bad training wise but I didn't get enough to be able to tell for sure what I would get from her videos. Obviously she knows her stuff and what she's doing.

On her website you can buy all of her videos individually or you can buy all six of them as a package deal. Of course they are cheaper if you go with the bundle but more expensive if you end up not liking the videos...

The package includes: Basic Groundwork, Starting young horses, Basic Body Control, Bridleless Riding, Teaching your horse to bow, and Whoa- Teaching your horse to stop.

Decisions... decisions....!