Against My Better Judgement

How do you do ladies and gentlemen, I am Sir Dweezil of Inwood and I would like to introduce my good friend and boon companion, Mr. Squigman Igmeowkowski.

We are a couple of bon vivants and sophisticated men about town.

Maia:  Eyes Rolling

Dweezil, here, Squigman don't you have something to say to that dear lady out west, Ms. Cynthia Susan over at the Rough Strings Ranch

Squig here, Cindy Sue, you are one red hot mama, even though your a dog.

Whap and a smack on the head

Dweezil what did you do that for? What did I say? It's not like she's that tasty little Siamese down the road and I'm not really into dogs.

Whap, Whap, Whap.

Cynthia Susan, Mr. Igmeowkowski is obviously not himself today.  Maybe he had too much anesthesia at his last visit to the vet. You see, he can't seem to stop fighting, poor lad. What he meant to say is that when we read your latest post, we were overwhelmed with your intelligence and canine loveliness.

Maia here, where are my muck boots, the you know what is getting pretty thick around here.

It's Dweezil again, muck boots that reminds me of our locale, that little slice of heaven where we live.

Dweezil, don't say it.  You know what's going to happen if you say it.

Hmm, like I said, Sqiggman is obviously suffering from some brain deficiency, because we live in the rolling hills of the horse country of Maryland.

Now you've done it Dweeze. It's here

Hi, I'm a horsie and I can run really fast. Wanna watch me run?

No, Shorty we do not want to watch you run, now go away we're having a conversation here with our adoring readers.

But I want to say.

Zip it.

My name means pretty and I can run really fast.

Zip it.

I won't.  Unless you let me talk, I'm going to hold my breath till I turn blue.

Feel free.

Look what you've done Dweeze, you've gone and ruined it.  It must be your hairdo. It's made you stupid. What kind of boy cat gets a "sanitary cut."

Am I blue yet?

I'll show you a sanitary cut. Come here you little weasel.

AM I BLUE YET!!!!!!

Before this degenerates any further, I think you all have pretty much proved my point.

AM I BLUE YET!!!!!

Oh good grief, Now there's three of them.

Wordless Wednesday - Summertime

Messing About with HDR

I finally got up the nerve to try to do an HDR, and not being out west, I thought I'll just try it with what I've got at hand.  So I did the three exposures, automated them in photoshop,uploaded it to picnic, worked on it there and tada here it is:  My very first HDR.

Anyway, have a wonderful weekend.  I'm off to buy a colorful ball.  That's what we're up to now with herself, we kick the ball, she chases and if she touches it with her nose, she gets scratched and a treat. She can also step into the hula  hoop no matter where we put it.  And as far as her little snit fits go, well she decided to see if she could rear up on people and or back kick them.  That lasted all of two weeks.  Ever time she tried it, she got smacked , we hit the ground with a wiffle bat right next to her and she was told in no uncertain terms "that her behavior was not nice!"  Of course she had to try it with several different people only to find out that it worked nowhere. at no time, with no one.  

We're doing all of this "enrichment" because she's extremely bright and being the only foal this year has no one to play with. We obviously can't let her rear up, chase or kick people, but she can rear up on, chase and kick around the ball.



I Think She Might Be Cowy

Well up until I started getting into this foal raising thing, I had never heard the the word, "cowy," used as a descriptive adjective.  In fact if someone had told me that "cowy" was an adjective, I would have assumed that it was negative.  You know the old, "Doesn't Mabel look cowy in that outfit?  What on earth possessed her?" Or, "did you hear what Janine did? How could she have been so cowy?"

So when I read that the stallion's offspring tended to be cowy, I was puzzled to say the least. Nothing about Jolie looked like a cow, she's a precious little quarter horse and extremely bright. It wasn't until I was explaining this whole cowy business to a woman at the barn, a transplant from Denver, that I found out it didn't mean stupid or fat or stupid and fat; it meant that horse has a natural aptitude for cutting cows.  Well we don't have any cows and another border is being down right stingy about volunteering her goats, so I thought to myself, "Self I guess I just have to wait until she's a lot older to find out if she has any natural talent and ability in cutting.I also immediately went to UTube to see what this whole business looked like.

Fast forward to last weekend.  A friend of mine came to see Jolie and brought her dog, a shepherd chow mix.  Well Jolie took one look at that dog, ran right up to him, lowered her head and gave him her full attention.  If the dog took two steps to the left, she took two steps to the left, and she never stopped looking right at him.  She mirrored him, step by step, until the dog having had with it with being stalked by a foal, ran off.

So folks, is this cowy behavior?

Month 1 Part 2

Now let me see, where was I, oh yes on to New Bolton.  There are not enough words meaning perfect, exceptional, talented and dedicated to describe the vets at New Bolton.  It is IMHO the Johns Hopkins of the large animal world.  They took my sick foal and made her well and they treated her with kindness and compassion while doing so.  What can I say.

There were however two sort of funny things that happened. The first was a bit like an episode from I Love Lucy. I can just hear ya'll thinking that I have just lost my mind. How on earth could New Bolton be like the Ricardos?  Well in this particular episode, Lucy wanted to buy a pricey negligee and she knew that when Ricky saw the price tag, he have a fit and make her take it back.  So what did she do?  She bought twelve negligees and when Ricky had his huge fit, she offered to take eleven back, if she could just keep one.  Well after seeing the price tag for twelve negligees, one seemed like a welcome relief and he agreed.

When we first got there, the primary vet said that his best estimation for time and cost was five days and $5000. Yikes, but it was our foal's life, so we agreed to do it.  Then the veterinary resident came in and said no more like between $2000 and $3000 and we would have to pay half of the highest price up front. Gee $1500 after $5,000.  That seemed like a bargain and when it turned out that was all our bill was, instead of thinking $1500, yikes, $1500.  We said oh my god, what a bargain.  It wasn't even close to the $5000.  Hence the twelve negligees.

The next sort of funny was the source of her infection.  When we came in, I told the primary vet about the small healed over puncture wound and he told me point blank.  No, these infections were always blood borne and the source was somewhere else.  When we looked at the xray, there was a pocket of infection, next to the joint (luckily it had not gotten into the bone.)  When I said look at that, could that be the source of the infection.  Oh no, the source was somewhere else.  So when the vet called the next day with his update.  I asked, did you find the source of the infection, and guess what? The infection was not blood borne and they couldn't fine the source.  I wanted to say, Hmm, how about that puncture wound, but I decided gloating wasn't becoming, so I refrained.

Just to show how nice they are, a few days after we'd come home, I received the sweetest letter from the Resident in which he told me that not only was Jolie unusually pretty, but she was amazingly well behaved. Now before you guys start thinking that I have equine equivalent of some cutesy combination of Angelina Jolie and Sydney Sawyer (in case you've forgotten he was the brother who was always reminding Aunt Polly that he had his Sunday School suit on and knew his Bible verses); I want you to remember that I said that not only is she a bossy boots, but she is also quite the little madame. And that gentle readers is another story for another day.

I'll leave you with a few of my favorite shots from the past two weeks.

Bringing Up Baby Month 1 Part 1

Her first month was a month of extremes and it all started the week before Father's Day.  We went out to the barn, and I decided to go in and say hi to the owner.  So I did, she was in and had some company.  After I sat down and introductions and other niceties were out of the way, she said to me and I quote.  "I'm so glad you stopped by, Ms. J, has something she'd like to ask you.  What she wanted to ask me was if I would be willing to sell her Jolie after she was weaned for $9,000.  You could have knocked me over with a feather, to be trite.  After the shock wore off, I said that I'd think about it, but right now she wasn't for sale.

Later that week, a friend told me she'd posted pictures of Jolie on her facebook page and Jolie now had "friends" across the country.  Jeesh.

Fast forward to Father's Day.  After visiting my inlaws, we went out to the barn and I saw her lieing down behind the hay bale.  So I called out to her "Hi baby horse." And for the first time she neighed, this pitiful little neigh and this is what she looked like limping over to us.

As you can see, something was definitely not right. I ran for the barn manager and together the three of us somehow got her and Kitt back to the stall.  The barn manager ran for her cell and called the emergency vet.

To make a long story short.  Jolie had a septic right hock, was running fever and septic joints in foal this young is generally the result of a blood born infection which is absolutely life threatening. She had to go to New Bolton (where they took the race horse Barbaro) first thing in the morning. 

As we were all standing around in a state of shock, I happened to notice a small dark scab right over the swolen hock.  I showed it to the vet and she said that it looked like a healed over puncture wound. And then she said, these sceptic joints in foals are 99% of the time the result of a serious blood born infection, but maybe this time it wasn't.  But she still needs to go, because I can't treat this.

So, it was off to New Bolton.