Another Farmily Farewell

Sunshine left us yesterday. He was fine the night before, standing at the deck with moonlight bouncing off the snow and his broad white nose, his ears perky, watching me. I hauled water for him for the night, filled his dish with pellets, kissed his face. I loved the rituals we’d made since he’d been living in the yard – in the morning, through the day, late at night.

Yesterday morning, when Mike said Sunshine was down, I thought he meant lying down. Not great, but not disaster. I threw on a coat and went outside myself, and saw it was disaster. He was lying down, but his head was on the ground, his neck stretched out, and he was spent. He was trying to get up but he couldn’t. I tried to lift him (I am always in such total denial of the end). I called for Mike and all we could do was pivot him to a more comfortable spot in a pile of straw. Mike left to do cow chores and I sat with Sunshine. He wouldn’t relax and he couldn’t get up. It was devastating to watch. I called my vet to see if horse morphine exists (my denial continues). On the phone, I realized the only right thing would be to have my vet come over with the big syringe. The one that brings the end.

I’m glad it took my vet three hours to arrive – he had prior appointments, his office is 40 minutes away – because I got to sit with Sunshine that whole time, stroking his face in a morning that felt like Spring, warm, breezy, bright. The rest of the animals resting and wandering nearby, the chickens and sparrows chattering. Two mourning doves perched on either side of Sunshine and me, one on a low tree branch and the other on a fence post, surrounding us in their song.

I talked to Sunny and I cried, a lot, and tried to keep him as comfortable as I could, stuffing straw beneath his head when he’d thrash, petting him as he calmed. And I told him how glad I was to know him, how he made me feel so welcome and safe when I moved to Wyoming – I met him just months after I moved here and he and Houdini, his brother, promptly moved into the pasture of my rental house. That was ten years ago. Sunshine would let me jump on his back and lie up there, stretched out, watching the clouds or the stars as he grazed. When I rode Houdini, Sunshine hated being left behind and so he came with us, trotting beside me, head high, ears pricked forward. When Flicka joined the Farmily, Sunshine showed her how to trust, how to let go of the immense fear she carried when she arrived. He was always calm and kind and sweet and generous and now he’s gone and I still don’t understand this part of life, the part where it ends.

Snippets

Interesting turn of events: the Rooster Pouf must have telepathically received all the suggestions of “chicken soup” in response to my recent post about him, because he has been polite to me ever since. Really truly.

I spent my midday break-in-the-sun brushing and cutting frozen diarrhea blobs from an ailing horse’s tail. It was simultaneously disgusting and rewarding. Sunshine, who is nearly 30 and is having digestive issues, appeared to be in a state of bliss during the 40-minute procedure and I must have lightened his tail by ten pounds {icky face!}. His condition has vastly improved over the past two weeks, and he is in great spirits, so I, of course, have hope. He’s living in the front yard and wears a thick bed comforter under his horse blanket for extra warmth and looks like Merlin in horse-form. The other horses hang out on the other side of the yard fence, so he’s never lonely. His tail is now slightly shorter, but clean, and my hands still smell gross.

I have finished all my tax prep. You know I love doing it. Done!

I’ve also been watching Making A Murderer. I’m up to episode 9, just a few minutes in, and I’m stuck there – watching Brendan in court (and, previously, with police and investigators and LEN) feels like watching state-sanctioned child abuse and I just can’t deal. My cortisol is through the roof.

Mellowing out with an old pic of a cool cloud……

2016 Charlie Calendars!

The 2016 Charlie Calendar is ready to debut!
This is CCIX (Charlie Calendar #9), can you believe it?

I picked our favorite images from the last year (those which received the most comments on The Daily Coyote) and added a little something new this year – or should I say, a little something old? A baby picture! I couldn’t resist, and I had a feeling you all would love it, too.

Please visit THE SHOP to see larger pictures and reserve your calendar.

PS: I can talk now! More on that in my next post……

This, That, & the Other

My nasopharynx was deflowered last week. After huffing a numbing solution that tasted like diesel and wasn’t particularly effective, a long tube with a light and camera on the end of it was sent up my nose and down my throat by my laryngologist so she could see my vocal cords live and in action. I get to do this again tomorrow, with the added bonus of gigantic needles! My doc will send the camera back up my nose and down my throat, then go straight into my neck with said needles, and, with the aid of the live video, inject the musculature behind my left vocal cord to poof it up. Hopefully, this will help me talk longer, louder, and more easily. It’s craaaaazy how much I took my voice for granted before all this.

Charlie calendars are coming!! They really are. I’m still running behind in every aspect of life, but the 2016 Charlie Calendar is at my printer and I’ll have previews and the shop listing up next week. Stay tuned! And thanks for your patience. It’s a little bit late but as fabulous as ever.

Thanks, also, for all the Eli love. I cannot believe I have to actually type the following, but: Charlie did not kill Eli. Got a lot of Qs about this. They lived together for nearly a decade; if that can’t squash the cynicism, what can?

To end on a more frivolous note…. my latest Netflix binge is The Great British Baking Show. It’s the antithesis of Top Chef (which I also love). It’s so friendly and polite, though the matriarch judge makes a spectacular WTF face, and she makes it often. It’s full of strange bakes such as three-tiered pork-prune pie. The tiers, here, not meaning layers within one pie but three giant stacked pies, like a wedding cake of savory pie. Sounds disgusting to me, but it’s fun to watch.

King Kitten

I knew, when I posted a picture of Mushy on Instagram, I’d get a question about Eli. I also felt a twinge of weirdness when I posted, a couple of weeks ago, that everyone in the Farmily is doing great. It’s true – everyone here is great. But Eli isn’t here anymore. I am really having a hard time with this – even though it happened a while ago, this is honestly the first moment I’ve had it in me to acknowledge it here. And that’s as far as I can go right now – just acknowledging it. I have a lot written which isn’t ready for public consumption, but when it is, I’ll share it. For now, I’m just going to cry again.