Ricardo Puts His Best Face Forward

hello hello!

I hope everyone who celebrated Thanksgiving had a wonderful one.   And if you didn’t, well, I’ve had my share of unpleasant holidays and, though it might feel as such at the time, holiday misery is not a permanent forecast.

Mike and I spent the day with his family which I always look forward to - I adore Thanksgiving with his family.  When he and I were in his truck driving home from my first Thanksgiving with them three or four years ago, I turned to him and said, “Your family is so nice to eachother!  It’s like everyone loves one another!”  He looked at me like I was from the moon, like, ‘yeah, duh!’

Anyway, it’s a beautiful thing to witness and be part of each year.  And the food…. There were moments when I really did feel like I was in The Capitol but my guilt was fleeting because the rest of the year I pretty much live like I’m in The Seam.  And if you don’t know what the heck I’m talking about, get thee to a bookstore or a library and read The Hunger Games!  The link is right over there, in the sidebar.

In other news, Frisco is the picture of health!  When we fed last night, he was racing around in the snow and bucking for joy.  YAY!!

{ps.  I’ve got an awesome Etsy update coming up later today or tomorrow; keep your eyes peeled…………}

Five & Six

Charlie looks so grown up all of a sudden.

A woman who was trying to hurt me was in a car accident.
My first thought was: Karma. I haven’t had a second thought.

Thanks to dear friends and lots of pondering,
I’ve solved a puzzle that’s been plaguing me for months.

Most fantastic spontaneous luxurious date with my man last night.

I met a kind and intriguing woman who is going to teach me how to spin!

Frisco got pneumonia :(

Frisco has pneumonia. But he’s on the upswing now, which is why I’m able to finally write this post!  The past week has been rough, culminating in one night of utter despair as I lay next to him in the straw in the dark with my arms around him, thinking it might be the last time….

Bovine pneumonia is not uncommon ~ calves are susceptible when they are weaned and often survive it, though it can kill.  Frisco has not been weaned and is older than the usual age for pneumonia risk, so it was a shock that he became so ill.  In fact, at the beginning, when I noticed he was “off,” I thought he was depressed.

Last week, we weaned Mike’s calves, and to do this, we moved the homestead cattle (Sir Baby, TR, 16 and her little calf, all the characters you’ve seen on this site) over to a different pasture in order to use the corrals for weaning.  The calves being weaned have an easier transition when their mothers are right next to them, just on the other side of the corral fences.  The calves can see, smell, and moo to their mothers and Mike and I have found this set up to be far less traumatic than whisking them away from their mothers.

So, in order to do this, we moved the homestead bunch to a pasture across the road, leaving only Daisy and Frisco in the corrals with the group of calves, so that I could continue to milk Daisy.  We also thought that Daisy would act as a den mother for the calves and Frisco, so incredibly friendly and carefree, would be a calm and happy presence.  Plus, he’s not weaned from Daisy and therefore stays with her.

Weaning Mike’s calves went perfectly smoothly but I noticed, a few days in, that Frisco was not his usual happy self.  He was despondent, and kept gazing over to the pasture where his friends had been moved.  I thought he was depressed!  The next day, I noticed he was no longer nursing Daisy.  Something was definitely amiss.

By that time, the calves were weaned and we had trailed the cows to their fall pasture, and so Mike and I immediately moved Frisco’s crew back into the corrals, but Frisco didn’t even get up to meet them.  This was so completely out of character for Frisco that it was undeniable he had taken ill.

Diagnosing an animal is not always easy because they can’t talk to you in words.  Sometimes it’s a matter of ruling out options based on physical signs ~ he didn’t have diarrhea, he had a bit of snot, he could walk fine but he preferred not to get up.  He had lost weight and wasn’t drinking from Daisy.  He kept his head on the ground when he was lying down.  Mike and I suspected pneumonia based on these signs.  Though none of Mike’s calves came down with colds or pneumonia, it was the first time Frisco had been exposed to the younger bovine set ~ he has only been around adult cattle for his entire life, with the exception of 16’s little baby.  That, combined with a sudden shift to cold and wet weather just knocked him down.

At that point, I called the vet and described everything to him, and he also thought it was pneumonia; apparently dairy cattle aren’t quite as hardy as the angus are, either.  The vet told me the type and amount of antibiotics and cow aspirin to give to Frisco, and to call with a status report the next day.  I gave Frisco the medicine that afternoon (via shots) and made a bed of fresh straw for him in the sheltered part of the corrals where I milk Daisy.

That night was bad, but the next morning, Daisy’s udder was empty ~ no milk for me but YAY!!  It was the first time he had nursed in days.  Frisco was standing at the feed bunk beside her eating hay as well, and when he rested throughout the day, his head was up rather than down on the ground as it had been before.  I will give him another dose of antibiotics today and am still keeping a close eye on him, but I do believe he’s on the road to recovery!

Again, thanks for all your sweet healing wishes to the both of us :)

Clarification.

To make things perfectly clear re/the post below, Part IV:

Neither Mike nor I are DIRECTING ANYONE to SHOOT ANYONE in the LEG!

His words are a visceral and accurate description of the .44 Mag.  If you shoot someone in the leg with a .22, they will continue moving forward.

Here’s a photo showing the difference.  You can see my shot with a .22 pistol next to the Pepsi logo near the center of the can.  And then Mike’s shot with a .44 Magnum made the enormous gash.  We were standing side by side, about 30′ from the can when we did this.  The .22 makes a sharp loud crack when it’s fired, and the can didn’t really move when I shot it.  When Mike shot his .44, I felt the boom under my feet.  The can flew.  This is all to say, the .44 Mag is a beast.  It’s to protect oneself against grizzlies.  And this happens to be the gun the cops found, loaded, on the stalker when they arrested him.

To reiterate, in stating these comparisons, I’m not advising to shoot the leg.  Or to shoot once.  Or to shoot at all.  I am not advising, period.

Guns are an enormous responsibility and no one should learn technique from a website!  That should be done in a safe, hands-on environment with skilled, safety-oriented mentors.  I am not giving tactical advice here.  OK?  OK.