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TT: “Tails” from a 128 year-old barn

Our Michigan house was a pretty old house, it was build in 1910. The barn, however, was an older structure. The barn was built in 1892 by the Johnstons. They were a big name in the small town of Rosebush. I was told that Rosebush was given it’s name because of Mrs. Johnston. Anyway, the barn was a huge Amish barn. Coming from Georgia and South Carolina, we had never seen, let alone owned, a barn like this. The barns that I saw in Georgia were mostly pole barns, little more than a tack room and a stall or two so the horse(s) could escape the elements if it chose. So, yeah, this Amish barn was an amazing sight to behold and a lot of fun to explore. The barn has two levels. The lower level has two outside corral areas, one for cattle and one for horses. Each corral led to large covered areas for the animals to shelter in. These areas could, of course, be closed off in bad weather (a blizzard). Two heavy doors lead from the outside shelters to inside the barn proper. There are four large stone made stalls for (Belgian probably) horses, and beyond that several feeding stalls, a chicken coop, and a rabbit coop. The second level of the barn had a few pens for pigs or goats, and a massive hay loft. The hay loft has to be thirty feet high at least. there are two different chutes to drop hay down to the two different sections (inside stalls and outside shelters) of the lower level. These chutes start about twenty feet from the floor of the loft. That barn had to something incredible to see in its prime. A huge loft packed deep and twenty feet high with hay, farm animals of all sorts making this huge barn look small.

By the time we moved in, that barn had not been at capacity for some time. The people before us only had a horse that lived in the barn. At our height of barn animals we had three horses, four barn cats, and twelve chickens. But, we still used the barn, and these are some of my barn stories. Enjoy.

The first story is just a cute little thing. It was winter (I think all of these stories take place in winter) and there was a good layer of snow on the ground. I got all dressed up to do my nightly chores, and I noticed an unusual print in the snow leading to the barn. We had several barn cats, but it wasn’t one of their’s. I didn’t think much of it, we lived in farm country, there was bound to be wild animals about. I figured our big barn cat would chase the intruder away, or it would run once it heard me. The one set of light switches for the entire barn was almost dead center of the lower section of the barn, so I had to walk half way through the barn to turn on the lights. I turned on the lights, turned around, and there it was! An opossum. The big cat hadn’t tangled with it, my noise hadn’t scared it away. the opossum was perched on the side of a stall so that it was roughly face height, and (after I turned away from the switches) I was only about three feet from it. I saw it immediately and took a step back, it didn’t budge. I slowly edged away from it and toward a big stick I kept in the barn. I was able to grab the stick, keeping my eyes on the opossum, and poke him a couple of times. I didn’t want to kill the animal, it was no real threat to the horses or the barn cats, and the chickens (I thought) were locked up tight and safe. After several good pokes and pushes, at this point, I had knocked it off the stall wall, the opossum realized that the classic “playing dead” wasn’t going to work and it scurried out of the barn and back to the wilderness (or so I thought). That opossum returned the next night and I chased it out again. After a week I gave the little guy a name, Frank, and it would eat some cat food I threw to it while watching me cut wood for the next morning.

Why did I have a big stick in the barn? Why did I think the chickens were locked up tight? These are good questions. And they are both because of a raccoon. As the cool Autumn changes into the frigid winter, I would transition the chickens from the outdoor chicken coop into the one in the barn. By summer the chickens always became free range, and I would lock them up at night. As the weather got colder I would start bringing their food and water to the barn so they would roost in there. One chilly night I went out to take care of the horses, cats, and chickens. I turned on the lights, I fed the horses their hay, and the cats their food. I went to feed the chickens last before cutting and gathering wood. I must have walked in and out of the chicken coop (we converted an unused horse stall into a huge chicken coop) three times, bringing food and water in and out. At first the chickens, per usual, were chowing down on their food. There was the usual clucking and squalling that went along with twelve chickens wrestling over the best position around the feeders, but, as I cut wood, the sound suddenly died away. I went to go check on the chickens, and there, at one of the feeders was an adorable raccoon. He was fat and fuzzy (ready for winter) and he was shoving chicken feed into his mouth as fast as he possibly could with his tiny little hands. The raccoon saw me, gave a cute little hiss, and shoved another handful into his mouth. I tried to chase him out of the stall/coop by stomping and running at him. Round the chicken feeders we went. After a few laps, I decided to work smarter, not harder. I went out to the wood pile and found a nice big stick. The chase was back on and this time I could give him a few good whacks. The raccoon ran out of the coop, and up one of the hay shoot ladders into the loft. That night I made sure to gather all the chickens and lock them securely into the barn coop. The next night, I found where the raccoon had returned and had pried open part of the chicken fencing around the stall. Needless to say, Emily and I worked on raccoon proofing the chicken coop after that.

That’s the back of the barn and the little door to the hay loft.

The barn could be very creepy at night. The cold wind howling outside, banging the large wooden doors against the barn, random unexplained noises in the night (noises that were perfectly normal in the light), unknown scurrying in the barn when the lights are out. The barn could be scary at night, especially if you are prone to let your imagination get away with you. There were several times that I would turn the light out (the switch was in the middle of the barn) and have to walk out intentionally keeping my calm. One night, however, I truly scared Emily. Usually I would go out to do the chores by myself, but, sometimes, Emily would come. I would split, cut, and gather firewood while Emily fed the animals. On most nights, getting wood for the next day was my last job, after I was done I had to turn out the lights and walk through the dark barn carrying or dragging a heavy load of wood. So, my mind was trained. I gathered wood, turned out the lights, and left the barn. However, Emily was still in the loft and had no idea I had left or why the lights went out. Now she was in darkness, in a huge empty room that (I’m sure) many wild animals called home, on the second level of a large dark barn. She had called and called for me, but I wasn’t there. I can’t imagine what went through her head, we both have a pension for imagination, as she groped her way to the tiny door that opened in the back of the barn onto the hay loft. She had to dodge unknown obstacles on the ground as well as two hay shoots that dropped ten feet to the lower level. Anyway, I made it inside completely oblivious to what I had done. I stacked the wood, made some decaf coffee to warm up from the cold, and started to wonder why Emily wasn’t inside. It was then that Emily came back inside and told me exactly what I had just done.

There are a few other stories that I have about that barn, but this will be my last one for now. It’s about a possible drifter. This story took place in spring. It wasn’t the dead cold of winter and the nights weren’t completely dark at chore time, but it was definitely cool outside and the sun was setting. The first chore I would always do was feed the horses. That meant climbing the ladder up a hay chute to the loft. On this particular evening I climbed up to the loft and found the small door leading outside open and hitting into the frame with the wind. I did not hear this before I had climbed into the loft, but maybe I hadn’t noticed. But, I was curious. I looked around the loft and found food wrappers on the ground that I had never seen before and they were by a patch of hay that looked depressed and matted down, as though someone was laying there recently. I looked around the loft but I did not find any other signs of anyone. I did my chores, closed the small loft door, and went to the house. The next night, I heard what sounded like fast footsteps in the loft while I was on the lower level. I climbed the ladder to the loft, blaming my imagination, but I did not venture into the darker recesses of the loft where pigs might have been housed at one time. On the third and final night of this story, I went out to do chores, and climbed into the loft. I did not hear anything unusual, but when I looked around the loft a little I saw the food wrappers were gone (I never found them) and the depression in the loose hay had been kicked around and masked. I don’t know if there was a drifter in the barn. It all might have been that pesky raccoon for all I know, but it was pretty scary. I climbed the ladder every night for a while after that wondering what I would find waiting for me in the hay loft.

Scared?

I hope you liked this post, and if you did, tell your friends and share our link on facebook. If you have any scary stories, please share with us. And, as always, thanks for reading!!

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TT: COVID-19 Update part 2

Alright, here we go. It’s been a little over a month since I wrote about how Emily, the kids, and I are doing while in the grip of the Corona virus. In general we are doing very well, and for that I am thankful, (perhaps not as thankful as I should be considering all the people that are truly suffering from COVID-19). But, to say that ours lives have not been completely changed in the past two months would be very wrong. I’m not sure if (the proverbial) you would classify this post as complaining or whining, but I’m going to think of it as an update on how we’re feeling and how we’re coping with our new found life.

Emily’s quarantine Birthday, one of the 2 time’s we’ve gotten take-out.

Luckily Emily and I both still working. The vet clinic where we work is still open and fully functioning, we are not turning any clients away and seeing all kinds of appointments (not just emergencies). I know most people have been quarantined to their house, their place of business has been shuttered, and they are staying home to self isolate and help flatten the curve. Emily and I have “essential” jobs and I am thankful. Our lives have maintained a certain amount of consistency because of this. We get up, we drop off our kids at daycare (still open for essential employees), we go to work, we pick up the kids, and we go home. But there is so much more stress and anxiety with everyday life now. I’m awake and writing this at 3:30 on Sunday morning. Neither of us sleep very well anymore, the corona virus is ever present in our thoughts, and the kids’ lives have been very much changed.

Emily with her mask

At work: at work COVID-19 is always present, always lurking around the next corner. We clean insistently. Every thirty minutes each phone, computer, calculator, door handle, and any other surface that is generally touched gets wiped down. Clients are no longer permitted in the building and that has been the case for a while now. We’ve tried to pair doctors and assistance to cut down on people’s exposure to one another. Everyone at the clinic wears a face mask to catch any sneeze or cough. But, even with all these precautions, COVID-19 lingers. There have been three coworker leave work due to illness. None of them have been tested, let alone tested positive for corona virus. But still, we have had three different cases of illness at the clinic. As an assistant, it’s my job to go out to the client’s car to get the patient and the patient’s history. Every time I go out to talk to a client, I can’t help but wonder if this client is sick, or have they been exposed before coming here. Is this next client taking social distancing seriously, are they wearing a mask to protect me from their coughs and sneezes? I have personally had clients try to hug me since this began. I’ve had several clients try to shake my hand, I’ve been coughed on, sneezed on, I’ve had a client put a pen in their mouth before attempting to hand it back to me (I politely declined the pen). COVID-19 and the fear lingers everywhere at work. Mostly I fear taking it home. I don’t fear getting sick myself, this is probably overconfidence, but I do fear being the one to get my kids sick.

Calvin’s makeshift mask. I think it’s covering the wrong part of his face!!

At home: at home the fear is more distant. When I’m at home the fear feels like it’s “out there.” It isn’t here, it isn’t present, but it is still lurking. Trying to find a way in to our little bubble of safety. Emily goes to the grocery store once a week or every other week to buy food, and that is our extent with contact to the wider world except through work and daycare. When we are not working we are home. In general it’s been nice. We’ve started new quasi education projects. We’ve learned that vinegar will eat the egg shell off an egg, now we have a very squishy egg sitting in a glass jar (we also learned that the egg will absorb some of the vinegar and expand – now the egg can’t fit through the top of the jar.) We have also started a container ecosystem. The kids and I went down to the creek on our property and collected rocks, mud, plants, and creek water in a big container. So far we have seen some worm looking things crawling in the mud, some bug creatures swimming around the surface, and two tadpoles swimming around. We’ve also started a garden, started taking walks around the neighborhood, and many other little projects. Without school, Emily and I are trying to educate the kids at home. This is very tough due to the lack of change in our schedules, we still work five days a week. Instead of reading to the children at night, they now read to us, the school has provided packets of work for them to do, and we’re rehearsing sight words. I hope it’s enough, India is in first grade and Oscar is in kindergarten so school isn’t too challenging. We are, however, getting restless. Understandably, the kids want to go to the park, they want to go to church to see their friends. I find myself staring at the mountains longing to go hiking again, the walks around the neighborhood are nice but they aren’t quite the same. We all long to be out in the world again, to eat dinner at a restaurant or to play at park, but we are making due at the house.

Game night, with a twist =)

At least the media and social media seems to have more fully understood the dire situation we are in. I no longer hear a lot of people down playing COVID-19, although you still have your outliers like the quarantine protesters in Lansing, MI (even though Michigan has one of the highest disease rates in the nation) and “Dr.” Phil who compared COVID-19 to car accidents. In general we as a society now understand the risk that we are currently living with. Most clients are taking social distancing seriously, most clients are wearing masks when I go out to talk to them, and I’ve even had some clients cancel non emergency appointments because they didn’t want to risk their health for an appointment that could easily be rescheduled. Emily and I are trying to do our part, I think most of the people out there are doing their parts. I can’t imagine that this will go on indefinitely. This is not the new normal, but hopefully just a blip (a very scary and difficult blip) in our lives.

On a lighter note, there have been some good things to come out of being quarantined with the family. Work is more stressful but also more fun without the clients in the building. At work we can talk about things we would never talk about with clients in the building. Conversations tend to be more frank and honest and language is a tad more colorful (helps with stress relief). Patients’ histories are more direct. As a family we’ve learned that McDonald’s is still open even though Emily and I tried our hardest to convince the kids that it was closed. I look weird with a shaved face (I’ve grown back the goatee), and Emily likes to dye her hair pink. Trying to teach a 2 year old anything school wise is almost impossible(we tried to teach Calvin to write his name). We’ve also learned how to better be content with what we have and enjoy those around us. Enjoyment and fun is not found out of ourselves but comes from within.

Tell us what you think, how is COVID-19 effecting you and your lives? And, as always, thanks for reading.

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It pays to spay and neutered is tutored.. or whatever

Two bulls butting heads – fighting is another reason to have altered pets

I would say that for the most part, owners these days are much more aware of the benefits of altering their pet’s reproductive abilities, but we still run into the not-so-rare emergencies that come from not having a spayed or neutered pet. There continues to be more research as to when is the best time to have the procedures done, but overwhelmingly, the consensus is that it is safer, healthier, and dare I say, less expensive to go ahead and have that surgery done.

For the bitches: An obvious reason that it is recommended to spay a female and remove those hormones and organs from her body is the prevention of accidental litters of puppies. Despite the fact that nowadays, you can slap a cute breed remix name on a mixed breed puppy and get some attention, overwhelmingly, there are too many homeless pets in the shelters being euthanized every day to take the risk of finding forever homes for new lives. You won’t know until it’s too late whether you’ll have to find homes for just one puppy (which can be hard on the mother as that one puppy tends to be much larger than individual puppies in multiple puppy litters) or 17 puppies. And let’s say you secure homes for all these puppies, don’t pat yourself on the back yet, now these families will need to keep these puppies forever without dropping them off at the shelter when they start chewing up the couch or drywall before you can count yourself responsible. Obviously, I’m not talking about responsible breeders. There are absolutely some wonderfully thoughtful and detail oriented breeders out there trying to improve whatever breed they have chosen through intensive genetic testing and screenings and I salute them.

Puppies from an emergency C-section I did

Other reasons it is healthier to spay your female: You will prevent an emergency, very expensive, very dangerous condition called pyometra – this is a condition where weeks to a few months after her heat cycle, her uterus, having been open to the world when she was in heat with an open cervix and the amount of mucus dogs tend to produce during heat cycles create an optimum environment for bacteria to enter and take over. So, a month or so after they’re in heat, they become lethargic, can become septicemic (systemic infection spread through the blood), sometimes vomit, and can die. They basically have a giant sac of pus sitting in their abdomen that can spread to the blood supply or the uterus can rupture and then fill the entire abdomen with disgusting infectious pus. This happens with enough occurrence that if vets see a female dog coming in for lethargy, vomiting, ADR (ain’t doin’ right) and she’s not spayed, it’s considered a pyometra until proven otherwise. This is a condition that is best dealt with by doing immediate surgery to remove said sack of pus. This surgery, especially in the middle of the night or during the weekend (when bad things tend to happen) may cost anywhere from $600 at your most rural practice to $2500-5000 depending on the severity of her condition when she presents at an emergency clinic. So, not only are you going to easily spend 6-10x what you would have to have a spay done, but now her life is in danger on top of anesthesia risk. There are non-surgical ways to treat (I know some were asking) but those are not at all guaranteed and can prolong your dog’s suffering and possible eventual death.

Our dog, Rigby – a stray found wandering the back roads due to irresponsible breeding

Lastly, medical complications like mammary cancer is greatly increased with the more heat cycles your dog has been through. Generally speaking, you’re bitch is safest if spayed before her first heat (prevalence of mammary cancer: 0.5%), then safer after her first heat (prevalence: 8%), and least safe after her second heat (prevalence of cancer: 25%)

Oscar – but the picture looked right for all doom and gloom

Other excuses for not spaying:

  1. “She’s in a fence, she never leaves my yard” – great! As long as that fence cannot be penetrated by a male dog’s organ – because they can and they will.
  2. “She’s a German Shepard and my male is a Chihuahua, there’s no way they even could” – Sweetie, where there’s a will, there’s a way. They can and they will.
  3. “I’ve heard it calms her down to have just one litter” – Nopity nope. Not true. It will have a very different and unpredictable effect on every individual – some bitches get more aggressive with puppies. Also, if you start with a crazy/semi-aggressive/insecure mother, you’re more likely to have the puppies inherit/learn that behavior as well.
  4. “She won’t hunt if we spay her” – Ummm, well, she won’t be hunting for males!! *knee slap*
  5. “They are brother and sister or mother and son – they wouldn’t do that” – Yes. Yes, they will. They don’t care about human social structure or taboo when their hormones hit.
  6. “I want my children to witness the miracle of life” – Let me suggest a DVD: PBS Nova’s Life’s Greatest Miracle. You can buy it on Amazon.com for $16.59 – Pop it in the DVD player, I think you can even watch it online. It will save you the risk of an emergency c-section (go ahead and put aside $800-$5000 just in case), the possible loss of life of your dog and her puppies, or the possibility of having orphaned puppies that you have to feed, and stimulate to pee and poop every 2 hours. And then, don’t forget the vaccinations, de-worming, and health examinations ($45-$100 per puppy depending on your area) you will need to get all those puppies before giving them to their new home.
  7. “She’ll just get fat” – To be fair, obesity is a problem in all of our animals, surgically altered or not. We just like to feed them and forget how little they actually need. You are in complete control of their nutrition, they don’t have to worry about getting depressed and polishing off a bucket of cheese balls and a bottle of wine. You keep your dog at the right weight, not them. I’ve had surgically altered dogs my whole life and none of them have been overweight.
Laonia – another dog found on the streets (parking lot of Kroger)

Now for the boy’s side. To be fair, I don’t have nearly as many medically scary side effects of having testicles, but in short, being neutered will prevent unwanted puppies (yes, owner’s of males are also responsible for shelter euthanasias. I’ve heard too many times “well, I don’t have to worry about that because I have a boy”- just because you don’t see the litter born doesn’t mean it wasn’t your fault). Other medical reasons would be benign prostate issues when they’re older, testicular cancer, and preventing other emergencies such as being hit by a car when your dog runs down the road because he smells a female in estrus, dog fight wounds, etc.

Norman when he wandered into our yard – intact male wandering. We neutered him, but then he ran away – we hope back home.

Cancer: if you have the organ, it’s open to get cancer. Intact male dogs are more likely to not only have testicular cancer, but also prostate cancer, benign prostate hyperplasia (testosterone causes large prostate that presses on and blocks colon) and perianal (right next to the anus) cancer.

Other consequences of wandering

Other “excuses”:

  1. “He’s my BOY! I wouldn’t do that to him, just like I wouldn’t do it to my best friend” (usually of the male persuasion) – A couple of things bother me about this one. For one, why are you emotionally attached to your dog’s testicles? Your dog isn’t. Your dog has no idea what those things are for and doesn’t care a wink when they’re removed. Second, would you keep your best friend, your “boy” isolated in the house while you go to work? Would you walk them on a leash? Would you let them poop in your backyard? Now, imagine your best friend was also your roommate and had typical male desires that comes with full testosterone load from having testicles. Now, imagine telling your “boy” that he won’t be allowed to be with females ever (because you’re responsible). Again, your dog doesn’t care about his testicles, but if he has them, he will want to do things with them. If he doesn’t have them, he’ll just live in an ignorantly blissful world where he never even knows he’s missing anything.
  2. “He’ll get fat” – see previous reasoning in the girl section
  3. “It’s not my responsibility if he gets out and gets a female pregnant” – This is just infuriating for obvious reasons
  4. “I might stud him out” – good luck with that. He’s no Kentucky Derby winner and the very rare chance someone is actually going to ask to pay you for his services, you’re not likely to get much for it when you weigh all the risks of keeping him intact.
  5. “I love it when they get those large, disgusting testosterone pumped butt holes” – Said no one ever.
Hope you had as much fun as I did! Merlin – neutered Saint Bernard. Mangled (three-legged) survivor of a litter of puppies murdered by their own mother.
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Vlog: Easter Egg Hunt

The Thomas family had a practice Easter Egg Hunt so that Calvin could learn/practice before the big day. With most things in this family, there was a lot of laughing, some crying, and of course dancing. Stick around to the end for Oscar’s dance. We all need some good fun positive entertainment right now, so please tell us about your Easter. And, as always, Thanks for watching.

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Ugh! The dreaded fitness/health post from your Z list celebrity..

So, when I put the question out there for subjects I should write about, someone commented that I should write about how I’ve stayed thin after three kids. So, I guess I’ll write about what I do, knowing that it wouldn’t work for everyone and knowing that I’ve been incredibly lucky with my metabolism/body type/discipline that I’ve been able to maintain a decent BMI throughout my first 36 years of life. Also, understanding that at any moment, all that could change and I could put on 100lbs over a year because of hormones or what not.

********** I am not a human nutritionist. Seek the advice of your physician before trying any of this.

High school us. Tony looks weird. He was 6’2″ and 155lbs

So, in the beginning, I was a stick. No shape, just knobby knees and blonde hair. I was 5’8″ and around 130 throughout college. I always made it a point to go for a run at the intramural fields and during the ridiculously hot, humid summer in Athens, GA, I would ride my horse at daybreak for over an hour, then go for a run, then cut the grass or dig in the garden until I got chills and had trouble hearing. I’d go gorge on watermelon and water until my ears cleared up again. Then, vet school hit. Let me tell you something about vet school, you don’t move much. You sit in a classroom for 8 straight hours, then go directly home to study until midnight (because I believe in getting sleep to retain information), the only thing keeping your eyes open and brain somewhat working was constantly drinking or munching on something. This allowed me to gain a good 20 lb.

Vet School graduation (UGA)

I was always in denial about my weight gain. I exercised – running 5-10 miles or biking 30 miles a day, I cut out all fat and ate TONS of fiber, I still couldn’t get it off. I have NEVER in my life had an issue, so I chalked it up to muscle and so forth. Then, I got pregnant with India and when I had gained another 25 lbs, my doctor said something to me about being overweight and I was shocked. I denied it at first and made him back track some, but later, after India was born and I lost all that weight and more, I was finally able to admit that I was probably overweight and needed to start being careful. Here are some “tips” that may or may not work for you, but seemed to work for me.

Internship
  1. When pregnant/breastfeeding, don’t eat for two. Maintain your normal diet before you got pregnant (unless, of course you were too thin) to help to keep the weight gain to a minimum. It’s super hard though, especially in that first trimester, at least for me when I constantly felt the need to vomit unless I was eating a simple carbohydrate (bread, crackers, candy). Advice for that is just to do what you have to do to get through it. Every pregnancy is different and every person is different, but don’t use the pregnancy as a reason to throw out all your normal rules/guidelines for your eating.
My first picture with my first baby.

2. Breastfeed! – If you can at all breastfeed, even if you have to supplement with some formula, do this. This, of course, as long as you’re at a job where you can go to pump; not all jobs will cater to pumping breaks *evil eye stare*. Yes, breastfeeding is good for your baby, antibodies, blah, blah, blah, but it also can burn up to 600 calories PER DAY!! That’s equivalent to running a 10 minute mile for 6 miles everyday. Admittedly, I was only able to breastfeed Oscar for the entire suggested 1 year, but was unable to with India for more than 4 months before I dried up, and Calvin for only 9 months. Note: if you can’t breastfeed for WHATEVER reason, do NOT feel like a failure as a mother. No one can tell the difference between formula and breastfed people – except that my brother was breastfed his whole 12 months and I only got 2 months and was formula fed from there and he IS smarter than me. But, he also has asthma and I don’t. There’s all the proof you need.

The biggest I have been – around 170 by the time India was born

3. The 2000 calorie per day recommendation on the back of every single nutrition facts is based on the raging metabolism of an 18 year-old male. So, unless you’re an 18 year-old male, or run 8 miles a day, try finding a calorie calculator and don’t be too shocked when it tells you you should only eat 1200 calories per day. Cry a little, it’s allowed.

Christmas one year I’m sure

4. Don’t count your exercising as negative calories. Yes, they are, but if you think “I went for a run today, I deserve an extra beer, ice cream, and a midnight bowl of cereal” you will be deceived. If you keep track at all of your calories burned via app, etc, a) always assume they’re lying to you and b) remember (and cry a little) when you remember you can run your butt off for 3 miles and would have barely covered a single serving of vanilla ice cream, which, devastatingly enough is only 1/2 cup (measuring cup, not Big Gulp). Try eating just 1/2 cup of ice cream.. go ahead. That’s what I thought. Exercising is fantastic for you, great for cardiovascular health and building moderate muscles will help support your joints, especially as you age, and secretly you can remind yourself that more muscle increases your metabolism, but don’t let your stomach in on that bit of knowledge.

Okay, if you hike North Mannitou Island (MI) and get lost and end up hiking 20 + miles, you can probably eat a lot more – except that you only have peanut butter and tortillas.

5. Get familiar with food’s caloric content, but don’t obsess over it. Try keeping track of EVERYTHING you eat for a little while, but once you feel you have a general sense of caloric content – like eating out anywhere and ordering anything is a minimum of 1000 calories – you may be able to let it go. You may learn disturbing things like I did and all those harmless bite sized candy bars receptionists have at their desk or those insignificant donut holes actually add more to your end of day calories than the carefully calculated meals you obsessed over. When I used to keep a journal of my calories eaten, I would often just choose not to add those tiny insignificant calories and then when I saw that I had was negative 200 calories for the day, I would think “oh, good, now I can have ice cream” (remember that, literally, no one can just eat 1/2 cup of vanilla ice cream WITHOUT the chocolate syrup, mini marshmallows, and rainbow sprinkles) – I write this while enjoying a piece of birthday cake (the good kind with buttercream frosting) and a cup of coffee cause everyone knows that birthday cakes don’t count.

Tony’s siblings and company winning at kickball in our Holiday Day Olympics

6. Learn about the value of each food’s caloric content. Not all calories are created equal. I used to be extremely diligent about eating fat free foods as it was how I was raised with my mother constantly trying to lose weight and dieting. I even applied it to my daughter when she was born (and likely harmed her in some way, I’m sure) and fed her fat free cottage cheese and cringed at buying whole milk when she was a year old. Then, after I had Oscar, I took part in a self-care vetCE (continued education) where the speaker talked about the possible benefits of increasing the fat in your diet and decreasing the carbohydrates. I’m not talking about the keto diet – I have treated plenty of animals in the grips of ketoacidosis and do not recommend it – just decreasing the amount of carbs. In very simple terms, carbohydrates (sugars, breads, cereal grains) give you a “cheap high” – they make you feel good, but then less than an hour later, you’re starving again – a reason it baffles me how many diet snacks are carbohydrate based. Protein and fat, on the other hand will give you a nice slow burn (making sure you are not forbidden from increasing these in your diet by your doctor – my father cannot have almost ANY fat in his diet, including the “good fats”). You won’t feel immediately satisfied, but it will last so much longer. This is why a balanced diet is stressed by nutritionists. Being dramatically one way or the other can be harmful.

Tony and I when I was first pregnant with India

7. Really pay attention to your body and it’s responses to eating, drinking, and not eating or drinking. Feeling hungry and you shouldn’t be? Try drinking water, try to busy yourself with a task and tell yourself you’ll have a snack after it’s done. Feeling hungry and dizzy, probably want to eat something. Depriving yourself of all the good stuff all the time will just make you want to eat all the things after doing so well for so long (like 2 hours in my case if I tell myself not to eat something). After having dinner (try using small plates and only getting one small serving – you don’t have to feel miserably full to be full) if you’re truly craving some chocolate ice cream, have some, but make sure you’re REALLY craving it and not just “that sounds nice”. I know that I, personally, will just get into habits like having ice cream every night after dinner (the peer pressure from my husband doesn’t help) but that most of those times my appetite and craving center is actually quiet and content, but then I just eat the ice cream because it’s what we do after dinner. Or if I have a particularly stressful day at work, I’ll get home and enjoy some cheese balls and some red wine. Then a few days later, I’ll find that I’ve been doing that same thing every day since trying to re-create that amazing feeling of de-stressing that I had on the first day. By far, most of the time, I’m really not that stressed and don’t really want that drink, but do so out of habit. Stopping drinking with cheese balls and after dinner ice cream (we’re talking salted caramel with chocolate syrup, mini marshmallows, and rainbow sprinkles – and not no 1/2 cup neither!), I could save myself 5,300 calories a week! If I just didn’t have those little extras everyday, I could possibly lose 1.5 lbs per week! That’s never going to happen, but I could!

India baby!

8. Finally, my best piece of advice: become such a worrier that you develop stomach pains every time you eat =) Just kidding, don’t do that. But, seriously, I wish I could say that I follow all these dieting tips and it keeps me looking like I do, but I know that I struggle with self discipline as much as the next person. So whether you consider me lucky, blessed, or cursed with anxiety and digestive issues, don’t get discouraged, and as Anne Sewell wrote “Do your best and leave the rest for it will all come right one day or night.” <3

Probably my thinnest after Calvin – got down to 125 – I’ve gained from there, no worries.
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Emergency! My horse gashed himself good!

Horses are well known for their impeccable ability to get injured even in a round room with padded walls. They’re 1000+ lbs of bulk that can move really fast and with momentum like that, any surface can be a sharp surface. Not to mention many injuries come from their incredible flight response in which they don’t even consider what or who is around them, they’re going “all in” and running away even if that means scaling or jumping a wall at the drop of a hat (sometimes literally). This can create some rather impeccable injuries and those injuries are the topic of this post. Some gruesome crazy injuries that I have encountered – all with happy endings, no worries.

No pictures of gruesome wounds. Only completely unrelated horse pictures.

Cute foal cause it’s cute. Painting I did for a friend.

************WARNING************ Detailed description of wounds/bleeding (as well as healing) to follow. Dad, you better sit this one out.

Miniature horse – “Dolly” – given to India – unfortunately, India breaks out in hives when she touches a horse. =(

Let’s start with my own personal disaster, Orion. My first horse, ever, was a middle aged quarter horse mare named Jinjer. She was the best – she would go anywhere, do anything and never spooked at anything. She was a level-headed tank of a horse. Then, when I was a teenager, I got odd jobs and finally saved up enough money to breed her. I was silly and decided to breed her to a thoroughbred to get more height and athleticism than my little 14.3h ex-barrel racing mare. It gave me what I wanted physically, a long-legged, well-built athlete with unending potential as a sport horse. Somewhere in the genetic swap, though, we lost the brain and got a skittish, scared, highly reactive animal. I sometimes thought that he was like a guy on a bad acid trip and that when the wind was blowing, he thought spiders were crawling through the grass – you COULD NOT ride him if there was even a slight breeze, or if you were wearing anything that crinkled.

My favorite horse, Jinjer and a very young Orion

His first disaster incident, I went out to feed them and found him at the bottom of the pasture, not wanting to walk. I ran to see what was the matter, and his right hock was flayed open. I gasped and cried. He was only 4 years old and had been coming along in training so well. We were planning to take him to his first show (and my first show) ever. I had been so incredibly excited, and now here he was, crippled with a huge fleshy opening on the front of his hock. Another horse in the pasture had chased him into the fence (barbed wire – bad stuff). I called the vet, they gave me a poor prognosis for his future soundness as the slice covered the whole front of the hock and cross all the joints. Once the joints are damaged or opened, it can mean life long lameness or even death in a horse. I declined taking him to the vet school as I was an undergrad at the time and had no money. The vet couldn’t do much at that point except bandage him up and start pain medication and antibiotics. I spent months tending the wound every day and over $1000 in bandage material and rechecks by the vet before it finally closed up. But, unfortunately, he was lame the rest of his life – he would drag the toe when he trotted.

Orion in Michigan

His next fun adventure was when I was an intern at UGA and he was 11 years old. I had him tied to a 4×4 post that was concreted in the ground and securely fastened to the roof of the barn. I was grooming him and don’t remember what set him off, it was very likely the end of his rope hit the dirt ground with a soft “pat”. He freaked out. He threw his whole 1100 lbs backwards against his rope halter and snapped the 4×4 post about 6″ from the concrete bottom and ripped it off the rafters. And then, he took off. With the jagged post attached to his face with the rope halter.

Orion “tied” to a metal post (rope just wrapped around so he couldn’t repeat this incident)

Now, having that rope, dragging the post next to him was even scarier than the initial fright and he just kept spooking more and more the more he ran, the post dragging, bouncing around, hitting him. All I could do was watch and wait for him to stop his shear panic run. Finally, about 10 minutes later, he stopped and stood. He was breathing very hard and was trembling. Then I saw what I had feared would happen while he ran around frantically. There was blood streaming from his abdomen and splashing onto the post that was on the ground next to him. I just knew this was it, I just knew he had sliced his abdomen open and soon, his intestines would fall out onto the ground.

Somehow, though, I got very lucky and the jagged post had not penetrated his abdomen, but just made a huge gash in the bottom of his flank that tunneled a hole under the skin all the way to his hip – about 24 inches of skin ripped from the muscular layer. This wound took about a month or so before the open dead space between the skin and muscle finally filled in and the draining of serous discharge (a yellow colored fluid from inflammation and granulation tissue) finally stopped running down his leg, causing massive hair loss despite constant cleaning.

His more sane mother, Jinjer while she was pregnant

So, now I’ll move on to other impressive wounds that did not include my own horse and did not end up on the show (large chunk of muscle missing from pregnant racehorse mare’s hind). One was an Amish farmer’s cart horse who, like most, got spooked and ran between two sheds where the tin roof was a little low and sliced himself from shoulder blade to hip all the way down to the ribs. I could see the intercostal muscles moving with every breath. The farmer had packed the wound with burdock leaves and called us out immediately. It took about 2 hours of multi-layer suturing, but finally got the wound completely closed. I talked to the owner a few months later and he showed me a picture (on his phone -?-) of the horse looking back to 100%.

One early morning, I got a call that a horse had jumped a fence and had a huge wound. When I arrived, you could see most of the muscle from the upper right foreleg hanging to his cannon bone by just tendons with the radius (upper arm bone) partially exposed. I attempted to fix it with him standing, but he was too painful and I knew I would never get the lacerated muscle back in contact with the muscle origin while trying to fight with gravity, so I gave the horse enough anesthesia to lay him down. By now, though, the muscle was contracted and swollen and it still didn’t look good for getting the muscle back together. I sutured what I could along the sides for extra support and placed some large sutures in the muscles, then wrapped the whole front leg in one giant bandage. The most dangerous part of anesthesia with horses is the recovery as they are incredibly drunk and huge and trying to stand on toothpicks for legs. We painstakingly got him to wake up slowly and stand three-legged in the middle of a field with nothing but us ( 4 women) and some ropes to support him as he stood and wobbled.

Touring the Michigan countryside with Dolly (the mini)

Unfortunately, the sutured muscle didn’t hold and with the loss of blood supply to the end of the severed muscle, I ended up cutting away a lot of muscle and tissue, leaving a 4-6″ gap between origin muscle and severed muscle. Through continued bandaging and debriding of tissue, the wound eventually closed and the horse went on to training to become a western pleasure horse.

One day I got a call from another Amish gentleman that told me that his horse had injured himself a week or so ago and it was healing fine, but today, when he lowers his head to eat or drink, blood gushes out of his neck like a water hose. None of this sounded right or fit with any wound healing I could think of, so I packed up and headed out. When I got there, there was definitely evidence of a heavy bleed as the horse’s face was crusted over with blacked, dried blood, but there was not an obvious bleeding area. There was a wound on the right side of the neck in the jugular groove that appeared to be healing quite well, beautiful pink granulation tissue, no signs of infection, and contracting very well.

Then the horse tossed his head and that’s when a huge gush of blood came shooting out of his neck in the direction of his head. This was not old blood, or bloody fluid, this was whole, frank blood – it looked like a horror film. But as soon as he settled, the bleeding stopped again. I cleaned the area, put on gloves, and explored where the blood was coming from and as soon as I moved some tissue around and then held off the jugular vein on the body side of the wound, the gush of blood came flooding out again. I stuck my gloved finger in the hole the blood was coming from to plug it, then sutured the area closed tight. That did it. The bleeding stopped. I cleaned up and he thanked me and I went on my way.

A friend’s horse and their temporary “pet” Ferdinand, the wild hog who adopted them.

The next day, I saw that he had called me again and my first thought was “oh no, the sutures didn’t hold”. When I got to the farm, though, my sutures were still holding, but now the thing was bleeding from the other side (head side) of the wound. The same trajectory as the right jugular vein, but this time on the head side of the gap. This one was coming from a much deeper place and I had to plug the gushing hole while dissecting out the vein and pulling the friable dead tissue away and then placed suture around that vein. Finally, both sides of the gaping jugular were closed and the horse could heal.

He ended up recovering and returning to his job as ranch horse. The only thing I could figure was that when the horse had initially injured himself (caught his neck on a jagged piece of fencing while drinking), he had miraculously twisted off his right jugular vein and didn’t bleed to death right then. Now that the wound was healing though, somehow the vein opened back up. I know what you’re thinking; “That just doesn’t make any sense” and you’re right. I still don’t know what was going on.

Dolly with her newborn filly, Sparta

Horses are amazingly accident prone, but luckily, they’re also quite talented at healing. They are fantastic producers of a tissue called granulation tissue that looks like a bright pink, foamy tissue and, while very vascular and prone to heavy bleeding, will seal the wound from infection and fill the space for the skin to grow across. Sometimes, though, their amazing production of this tissue can get in the way when the wound is on a bony surface like the lower legs and will need to be gently shaved or trimmed away by your veterinarian to allow the skin to make it’s journey across. Luckily, granulation tissue does not have any nerves and the vet can sometimes trim away large amounts of the excessive tissue without hurting the horse – you sometimes don’t even need sedation – but the bleeding will look like a massacre. It’s okay, they have a lot, but PLEASE call a vet to do this or show you the proper way to or both you and your horse could end up seriously injured.

Me, sitting on Orion for one of the first times