Canadiannee - "These Old Ways"

[Canadiannee]

Ewww the 401 traffic... yep, I'd be wishing anything but that for anyone! I dislike hwy's to begin with, but the 401 and the 400 do a number on my nerves.

Yeah, I think I'm finally hitting the acceptance stage of life... you know those years when your children have finally grown up, fledging for lives of their own, and everything as you knew is changing... the time when you're becoming an empty nester, and you're not quite sure what to do with the time you use to devote to raising your family? And the fact that you're getting older, have more aches and pains then you had the previous year, and the year before that, and you're not able to do all the things you use to do with the same fluidity of agility and grace? lol!

I am sure I'll be super content with switching to driving once Lady is sold... it's that going to the barn every morning, gazing across the paddock, looking at my girl and wistfully thinking, "maybe next year" despite the reality that physically I just can not do it anymore... and that's just another part of accepting "life's changes" isn't it?

Today was not a barn day for me... wonderful son Sawyer went out at 5am to do chores at both properties, and equally wonderful husband is stopping in on way home from work to feed, turn in and close up... it's been a very quiet day, I took the dogs out for a walk, but the temperatures out there are blistery and when the dogs are rushing to get back inside, you got to know it's a cold one!

I have my bread dough rising, but haven't really done much else since I woke up this morning... I'm just feeling super duper lazy today!

 

[Canadiannee]

Today was one of those "good day, bad day" scenerios... A VERY good day that I had finally finished tooling my husband's new belt (considering it was suppose to be his Christmas gift!) and a BAD day because out to the barn I went and discovered two 9 week old kits we kept back from our last litter displaying signs of mucoid enteritis.

This is the first time I've encountered it in one of my litters but have witnessed it happening to some of my fellow rabbitry owners... some have had success treating it and others haven't... but we're going to give it the old college try. So packed up the babes and brought them home.

Oh, and lucky ducky us... MORE snow! C'mon Mother Nature... paint me a new landscape of tulips and daffodils, I'm kinda getting tired of the winter landscape!

My husband's finished belt - all he wanted was his gelding's name and acorns and oak leaves

Closer up details

 

[CochinBrahmaLover=)]

Sorry about the kits
Wow! Did you do that!? Its beautiful!

 

[Symphony]

That belt is great and lazy days seem to happen more the older I get.

 

[Canadiannee]

Thank you CochinBrahmaLover - Definitely very sucky over these two kits... but you prepare for the worst and hope for the best right? They both made it thru the night, and both looked a little more bright eyed at 6am this morning, but still grinding teeth and feeling sloshy inside... not as dismal looking as I've seen some at friends rabbitrys, so can only do my best, and cross fingers!

And thank you for your compliments on my husband's belt... I enjoy working with leather, ok... lol, a little more than "enjoy", I like it enough that we've built my new leatherworking studio into the old barn renovation. I wish I had taken the "before... BEFORE" pictures of these rooms in the addition of the old barn... both these areas were about 4' deep in years of accumulated manure and straw... old metal penning, chicken wire up to the ceilings, and dust webs hanging down to the floor... not pretty at all!

This is the wall we've just built to divide my studio from the rest of this part of the barn... since most of my leatherwork is western tack, I wanted the 20' x 40' room to look like a bank of stall fronts... each metal panel has been placed opposite to where windows are on the barn's outside wall to continue allowing the natural light into this part of the addition... it's far from done yet, still have to add a faux beam across the top of the wall, paint the bars and stain the recycled wood before moving my studio in... but with the change of plans for our equine lifestyle, we had to jump to the back half of the addition and start laying out horse stalls.

I haven't fully decided what I'm doing to the other side of this front half of the addition yet... right now there's a 20' x 40' pen there wintering my pygmy goats until their area in the original structure of the barn is completed... In this barn project, I have to keep shuffling the pygmy's, boers, and rabbits around as we tackle the structural repairs needed on the barn and build in their permenant areas... Old man winter isn't making it easy!

This is the back half of the addition after we tore out all the metal fencing and brought in the front end loader and cleared it... All the supporting posts were rotted where they were buried in in manure... and all that debris scattered around and up against walls in this picture is everything we either pulled down or found buried in this room... DEFINITELY was NOT one of my favourite tasks for this renovation! Simply said.... YUCK!

All the most recent pictures of what we've done on this area are on my husband's phone, but this picture gives a visual on where we're going with this back half of the addition... we're running 12' x 12' horse stalls up along the stone wall of the original barn and the other side of this area will house a feed room, wash stall and tack cupboards with a large open space for grooming and tacking up... This barn is being renovated back into usefulness by using totally recycled materials... lol, it's been a challenge, but a rewarding one. When I think back to all the waste materials we took to landfill from the countless numbers of kitchen, bathroom and basement renovations we did for clients, I certainly hope Mother Earth is going to forgive us a little when we get this old beast done!!

Symphony - isn't that the truth of it! When I wake up in the morning I think I'm still 19... and when I move to the side of the bed and my plant my feet on the floor, I am very much reminded that I am not! ooooer... this body just needs a rest some days!

Wishing everyone the very best in their day!

 

[Canadiannee]

Today I am a VERY happy camper! The sky is bright, the sun is shining and it looks like my two kits may have survived their 'bout of mucoid enteritis. (and I may have survived my first time experiencing it too!)

I am absolutely floored... they've come thru looking very little "worse for wear"... a wee bit of lost coverage on their spines, but that's it... 5 days of treatment, and their bottoms are clean, they've started back to eating hay and rolled oats yesterday, and they've got some nice little round bunny droppings happening again... what a relief!

As I said in an earlier post, I've never had a litter come down with enteritis or an adult rabbit for that matter, but I have witnessed many of my rabbit friends and aquaintences suffering great losses to this bacterial infection and most told me to cull them... I have to admit, by Wednesday morning I almost did... I was ready to give up... they looked miserable, I felt miserable, and everything I read about mucoid enteritis and treatments from various authors seemed to contradict each other... not to mention that many of the medications and products mentioned or advised for treatment were not available in my country... that made me feel even more helpless in any quest to try and save them.

I'm sure my treatment may spin a few heads... it certainly wasn't vet advised, however, for whatever it's worth, it seemed to work for these two... I used a combination of Alka-Seltzer, Tetracycline 250 and Kefir Milk - 2x per day.

With the amount of fluids we were syringing into them morning and night, they didn't dehydrate, and weight loss throughout the 5 days was very minimal... I'm not going to say they're out of the woods... I haven't started them back on pellets yet, I'm just enjoying seeing them both bright eyed and hopping around their cages with energy and curiousity... a far cry from the bloated tummies with the distinct sloshing sound of fluid, the grinding of teeth, the listfulness and the liquid bunny poop and masses of clear mucus coming out of their nether regions...

On the goat front... I still believe we have a couple weeks before we're being seeing any kids coming out of Prudence... she's getting bigger by the day and more uncomfortable, but her ligs are still tight and no changes to her vulva... I'm very much for planned breedings, I like having a due date on my calendar to reference to, and purchasing a "may be bred" goat gets me anxious...

I have a showing scheduled at 11:30 tomorrow morning for my tb mare, and thus my brain is in active mode and although I should be sleeping, I just can't seem to make it to bed... It's the anxiety... she's an incredible mare, and I've listed her at a price to sell... anyone sliding onto her back and picking up those reins will know instantly that they've come upon a wind fall... why is it so hard to say goodbye, even when you know you're doing the right thing?

And on that note... this girl has got to go to bed! Sleepy or not, I can't be staggering my way thru tomorrow on a couple hours sleep!

Wishing you all the BEST of your day tomorrow!

 

[Four Winds Ranch]

Congrats on your kits looking like they are going to make it!!!!! Lol, I will keep your treatment mixture on hand incase I run into the same problem!
Good luck showing your mare tomarrow!
Oh, and I love the belt! To bad we dont live closer, it would be awesome to see you at work!!!!!

 

[Canadiannee]

Hey Four winds Ranch Gosh you just never know who may turn up on your doorstep one day! lol, Oldest daughter, son-in-law and gorgeous grandson "B" live in Edmonton, and other son "C" lives in Grand Prairie, so there's always that wistful thinking that we should (or could) move west, but golly, if I cursed out Ontario's cold winter temps this year, I took one look at your even colder temps and thought "Those poor, poor people!" (I'm truly a wuss when it comes to the cold!) And thank you for the congrats on wee "Soot and Smudge's" journey to recovery... I woke up this morning to bright and white "bunny bottoms", empty bowls and a large amount of firm (but not too firm) bunny droppings... it was like winning the lotto! (Except instead of winning money, we may have won the saviour of two babes lives)

I'm fairly certain their recovery had more to do with luck then any degree of medical knowledge when I tried this combo of alka-seltzer, tetracycline and Kefir milk, so I won't be writing this up as a cure in my folder of notes anytime soon... Indeed, I had to wonder if the ASA in Alka-seltzer would kill them, but I was working on some well thought up (or perhaps imaginary) theory that Alka-Seltzer would help eliminate the pain and reduce the bloating.... lol, and just the plain fact that my Momma use to make us drink sodium bicarbonate whenever we had sick tummies and we always felt much better afterwards!

We didn't show Ms. Mare today... sadly, the young woman coming out to meet Lady lost her Grandmother unexpectantly in the wee hours of this morn (condolences to her and her family) and has rescheduled for next weekend... In the meantime, a talented rider (and friend) we've engaged to exercise Lady and handle her showings/sale has now found herself smittened by the red-head mare after putting her back to work this past week... It's been really wonderful watching Lady working again; to watch her collect, to extend, her lead changes, her side passes, and that head toss she does when you reach down to pat her neck for a job well done, as if to say "I already knew that!"... it's odd watching these movements under someone else's hands, and at times standing by the fenceline, I close my eyes and can still feel those horse muscles under my legs... I know her movements so well, I know from a distance when she's being testy, and I know when she's relaxed and pushing for more... and I also feel in my heart of hearts, that the woman who is handling her sale will probably be the one to buy her... there's a connection between the two of them, I don't think there's any words in my vocabulary to describe it except maybe "magic".

Today wasn't a work day for either Missy and Lady or our son Sawyer and his mare Summer... instead they took the mares into the arena riding bareback and frolicking in the snow and the sunshine together... gosh, the temperatures were glorious today, and I hope Mother Nature isn't faking us out this time... I don't want to see those day time temps doing anything but go up, up, up from now on... simply said "Good-bye old man Winter!"

After putting Lady and Summer away, I decided to bring my pony Alice out and tackle an issue that's been very distressing for me... I've come to a major roadblock in her training, and I don't want to push further until we correct this... it makes her down right dangerous.

My wee little Alice has a tremendous fear of bags... and it's not a "little" fear, it's a trembling "bag gonna eat me" bolt and run for her life fear... a bag rustling in the wind 500 ft in the distance will send her into instant panic mode... honestly, I have never come across an equine who has this kind of WAY over-the-top reaction... you know those old equestrian cartoons you often come across with the little pony jumping off the ground and landing cradled in their rider's arms... well that's my girl Alice! Oh, how the ladies and gents in our horse circle laugh and razz me about my little pony... our battle with those evil pony eating bags is becoming legendary... No one greets me with "Hey Annie, how you doing?" anymore... it's "Hey Annie, another bag eat Alice?" *rolling eyes*

So what do you do when you're stumped and have exhausted decades of horsemanship knowledge to get one wee 10hh pony to accept a crumpled up plastic bag within 10 ft of her space... well, you hand the lead rope to another trainer and hope to heck they have something in their arsenol of techniques that you haven't thought of or tried... lol, it didn't happen today though... Nope, instead I had one very muddy pony and one very mystified trainer!

And no work for me at the big barn today... nope, not me, I had to come home and pick clods of muck out of my hair... who knew such tiny hooves whizzing around an arena could kick up so much mud!?!?!

One of Alice's mild reactions - son Sawyer walking her down the road and a plastic bag blows across road from adjacent field... silly, silly pony!

And as always... Best wishes for your day!

 

[Four Winds Ranch]

I am not sure what methods you use to teach/train your horses, but if she were mine, I would tie her up to something sturdy. Brush her for a bit and then touch her with a bag. If she jumps around, I would keep at it until she realize that bags don't hurt. Then the next day, rub the bag on her body, all over if she will let you. Once she stands for that, tie her and tie bags to fence post around where she is so she gets used to them. Over the days when she is tied, put bags, and do with bags, anything she might come across, and let her realize that they don't hurt hores!
That is my method, it might be a bit old fashioned, and maybe you have already tried it.
Hope you can figure out how to help Alice!!

 

[Pearce Pastures]

Beautiful belt! You are talented. And I see you are a fellow barn remodeler. We are in year three of our project I just love old barns, but they are a lot of work to keep alive.

Glad to hear the kits are doing better.