Horsey entertainment

Well, it's been an interesting weekend so far. Yesterday marked Trixie's 3rd birthday. Good thing I'm working on her every free chance I get - which so far, is not too much.

Yep. She looks overworked, doesn't she?

Wheezy got the OK to go into a small pasture with a friend last time she saw the doc. Looks like she is mostly blind now in that eye. BUT, she is certainly doing fine. She ran into the little pasture like she had a firecracker up her ass yesterday. This morning, it was just a bouncy happy feelin' good trot. Good for her. She's hangin' with Rosie, they're buds. They eat together, walk together, shit together... you know how those tight horsey buds go.

For the first time since I've had her (has it really been 4 years already?) I FINALLY got a great picture of Velvet. Oh, not one, not two - but THREE. I am still in total shock and awe.

Here is my favorite.

You can even see the teeny tiny star on her head. Aww. How I love that horse.

Then, to make my morning complete, when I got back in the house, ALL of my boys were awake, and having a good morning too!!! Larry was snuggled up in my bed, Big Larry was playing with the baby, and the baby (when he wasn't playing with dad) was jumping like crazy in his little johnny jump up thingy. Then this:

How can anyone NOT like this??? And, my little boy took the picture of my littler boy. Good Morning. Wish the whole day could run this smooth and cheerful.

Wheezy

My mother has a mare with a very, erm. . . colorful personality. She is generally a good natured horse, though one of the most cantankerous old bitches you ever did see. She can be perfectly sedate one day, and then try to strike at you the next. We have gone around several times, and although she can be terribly pig headed, she always realizes that 'oh, yeah. . . this one doesn't back down.' Although we clash from time to time, she knows too, that I do have her best interests at heart. When she is ill, she is generally very very easy to handle for me. Even when she will try to buffalo my mom (her person, that is) she knows better than to pull that crap with me, and that I will take care of her no matter how ill she feels.
She also has an inate tendency to get herself into more trouble than any of the other horses combined (knock on wood). Some how, she is the one that breaks her halter, gets kicked, tangled in wire, breaks her feeder, bucket, or stall door... she is the one that gets cut in a foal proof stall, and finds a way to mangle her latch on the door. It is both irritating and endearing. You never can tell what the hell she's going to get into next. For instance...
She likes to chew wood. NOT crib, just chew. She will beaver through an 8x8 treated post like it's made of apple flavored horse treats. Over the winter, while I was pregnant, and hardly able to keep them fed & watered, Wheezy ate her stall down to the framework. I'm not saying the other horses didn't eat their stalls too, but none so completely and efficiently as she did.
It is understandable then, that when my mom found the time, and materials to finally go out & fix Wheezy's stall mom felt like Wheezy was safe from herself for the first time in months.
I thought so too.
We were WRONG.
Somehow the very first night that we had gone over that stall, and re-covered it, checked and double checked the feeder & bucket, salt block holder, walls, door, and even the ceiling & floor ...
Wheezy injured her eye. On what - no clue. I have combed her stall, the barn, anywhere she may have been able to reach - nothing.
When we saw she'd hurt herself (Larry saw it first, he fed that am.) I called the vet, it was of course, a Saturday. I explained what had happened, told him what I had available in the barn for treatment, and was told to use my antibiotic eye ointment, and if no improvement by Monday, to bring her in. Well, by Sunday afternoon, it was worse - not to mention getting ointment into the eye of a notoriously head shy horse is no picnic in and of itself.
We set out to bring her in that Monday AM. Somewhere between breakfast, and unloading her at the docs (didn't think to look at it when I loaded her) the cut on her eye was actually protruding. Eeew.
She punctured her iris. We left her at doc's he put her on the ground and stitched her 3rd lid shut. He kept her there to medicate her easier, and monitor her for himself. She came home, with her eye still shut to give her a chance to heal. She did great for doc, and for us, until she found a way to rip a few stitches - back to see doc. he sedated her, and removed the remaining stitches. We have brought her back twice now, just so doc can monitor her. She'll be going back again Thursday.
No word on if she will ever be able to see from that eye again. I'm hoping for the best case scenario - a blind spot rather than a blind eye. So far, Doc has been impressed with how well she's been healing.