What a month! I spent three days last month in the hospital with pneumonia, sepsis and anemia. I wish it had happened a couple of months earlier, this is prime time for me, spring and getting the yard and garden ready.

My nephew and his son came up last weekend, and they worked a bit with my rescue horses.


Dexter (the bull) still has a fascination with Beauty, as you can see by him and the rest of the herd following the boys around the pasture.

I need to get a saddle for Beauty!

I got a new baby ferret. I named him Tiny, and looking at the size difference between him and Chunk, you can see why the name is appropriate.

The sun is trying to peek out this morning, and I’m ready for it. It’s been a cold gloomy week, I actually had the wood stove going yesterday. My perennials are popping up all over my flower garden, and I’m itching to get out there and get some weeding done. It’s a very salubrious to sit in the dirt and weed, soaking up the sun and listening to the birds. It’s the very BEST time of the year, no bugs and cool enough to work outside.

A month and a half since I last posted?!? Just not much to say, and the winter and bad things have kept me down. Several weeks ago in 36 hours, we lost a favorite (but quite old) cat, a cow, and two calves. Heartbreaking…

Winter continues, it’s 22° right now. At least it’s sunny, those cloudy days send me to my recliner by the wood stove. For those of you who have never had a wood stove, you don’t know what you’re missing. Yes, it’s work to bring in the wood, clean the ashes & chimney, but the warmth it gives off is simply comforting.

I’m struggling to get back into making beads (and selling them), so no bead pictures. A nice variety of everything else, though. We’ll start with critters first. This is our latest neighbor, he/she has been leaving bunny droppings all over my flower garden. We may have a fight when my plants start growing.

And I’m not happy with this guy. He’s been waking me up every morning at first light by sitting on the vine by my bedroom patio door and trying to fight with his reflection. It’s getting old…

These are some photos of my big fuzz ball of a dog when we had our last snowfall,


Don’t feel bad for him, he prefers being outside, even covered with snow.

It does look pretty, if you don’t have to go out in it.

More critters, the cat sitting on my computer,

and Bunny enjoying a bucket of snow,

On with the outside critters, Beauty and the beast (the bull),

and Beauty with our newest rescue, Buddy. He’s a past-his-prime Amish used Standardbred, and he’s a sweetheart,

Beauty sticks pretty close to him. She really needed someone of her own kind. Dexter, the bull, really likes her (I think her size impresses him), but Beauty drives him away if he gets too close. I was out checking the fence line the last warm day, and the whole herd had to come see what was going on.

A gorgeous amaryllis that’s blooming right now,

Funny Internet pics:

Hard to believe that three weeks ago, I was walking barefoot in Florida. It was a whirlwind trip, just about 5,000 miles in two weeks. I’ve probably got a few more grey hairs from driving in rush hour traffic (in the dark) through Atlanta, Georgia, but it was well worth it, just to be able to be outside in shorts and sleeveless shirt and walk barefoot on the beach.

The Big Beast at Vicksburg,

Grand nephew and great-grand nephew loving the beach,


and pictures to remind me of a wonderful, peaceful time,

The downside was that it was a heatwave down there, and rainy and cloudy the whole time. If we can do this again next winter, my nephew Scott would prefer to go to Arizona. That would be fine with me, we could head down to Texas to the coast so I could get my beach fix and then head to the desert. It certainly makes for a nice break in the winter. Last weekend was horribly cold, and this weekend is going to be even worse. These pictures give an idea of how wicked that northwest wind can get in the wintertime. Those icicles under the eves are at an almost 90° angle.

Statistically, we are past the worst of the winter, the days are noticeably getting longer, and (again, statistically) the days will be getting warmer. Spring is on the way!!

Oh, I saw the cutest commercial with two of my favorite subjects, horse + Amazon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU_c8aabw2Y

Lukas and I along with my nephew and his son and grandsons went Friday for a dry run with the new RV. We stayed overnight at Frontenac State Park, south of Red Wing. It was a beautiful place, and I would really like to go back in the spring or fall. Bet we wouldn’t be the only ones in the campsite then.

Of course we had to take the two little dogs with, since they’re mandatory on any RV trip.

There were a couple of hitches, we couldn’t figure out why the electricity wasn’t working with the generator on, so Lukas couldn’t play his playstation while I was driving. I ordered an inverter that will be hard wired to the house battery so that won’t be a problem on the next trip. We also found out the outlets in the kitchen don’t work, so that will have to be checked out tomorrow when I take the RV in to get a rear leveling jack replaced. Also have to replace the house battery, it isn’t holding a charge. I have a truckers Rand McNally map book coming, for sure need that! Last time I neglected to check that before going on a road, I ended up pulling over and throwing up (from stress of being on a narrow switchback road with no place to turn around).

If everything goes right, in less than two weeks, we’ll be on our way to Florida. Warm sunshine, sandy beaches and ocean, green grass… getting excited!!

Never ceases to amaze me, how huge these woodpeckers are!

And some humor,

A very busy week, what with dog visits to the vet and vet visits here. And what lovely weather we’ve had this fall so far; I was outside in shorts and bare feet earlier this week, and I still have flowers blooming in my garden. Just unbelievable! If every fall/winter were like this, it would be much more bearable. I saw the biggest rainbow I think I’ve ever seen, just gorgeous.

Would you like to see what happens when the gate gets unlocked?

They were certainly enjoying my front lawn.

The vet and farrier came Thursday morning to sedate Beauty and get her hooves clipped. Boy, did that medicine hit her fast! Here she was with Christian holding her,

and within 3-4 minutes of the shot, she was swaying,

At one point when Barry was doing her hind hoof, I was pulling on her halter with all my weight and Christian was in back of her pushing on her butt. I was afraid she was going to go down on him! The vet got in there and pushed her up against the hay bale, so with the three of us pushing and pulling, she got her hooves clipped. Look at that bottom lip,

We’ve been working on her feet during feeding time, pulling them up with a rope and holding them up, and she’s slowly getting better. Hopefully in Feb. when Barry comes back, she won’t have to be sedated so heavily.

My stomach has been churning the past 24 hours. I bought a new (not really new, it’s 10 years old) RV yesterday (contingent on mechanic’s inspection)! I’ve been looking since mid-summer for a different one, and my nephew told me when the right one came along, I’d know it. Well, the right one came along yesterday.

It’s a 35’ with 2 slideouts and it is REALLY nice!!! If I do get it, I hope to be posting some Florida photos in another 6 weeks. Sigh, I so hope it works out.

What a beautiful day! Not too many November days are so nice that I can work outside in barefoot and shorts.

A bit of an emergency with Beauty last night. She didn’t eat all of her feed at chores last night, which was concerning, so we stayed out to keep an eye on her for a few minutes. When she dropped and started to try to roll I was concerned, and walked over to her. She got up and walked outside the pen and went down again, tried to roll and made some moaning noises. I figured colic and called the vet, but being it was after 5, it went to their answering service, and had to wait about 10 minutes for the vet on call to get back to me. Christian went back out to check on her and said she was still laying down, and when the vet called I told him what was going on and he agreed it sounded like colic and asked if I wanted him to come out. Ummm, yes, I do. So while I was waiting for him I went out to get her up and walking. By this time it was dark and I wasn’t thinking too well, didn’t grab the flashlight, so one the way out I grabbed a solar light. LOL, yup, a solar light. What can I say? It did help me find her, because she wasn’t laying down anymore, she was standing in the pasture. Since I had my phone with, I went onto Facebook and the rescue group Saved page and wrote down what was going on. Others agreed it sounded like colic.

She had just taken a dump, and it looked normal, so that was good. But she was making noises in her throat, snorting and drooling, and it hit me that this wasn’t colic. I got her to walk out to the driveway and after about 10 minutes, she was quiet, no noises in her throat, no snorting. So back onto Facebook, and ta couple people said it sounded like choke. I walked her around a bit and she started eating grass, and I was thinking the vet is going to get here and he’s going to think I’m an overanxious horse newbie, because obviously there’s nothing wrong with her. But when he did get here and I explained what had happened, he tried to take her temperature, which she was having nothing to do with, so we got her calmed down and he listened to her heart, lungs and gut, and checked her mouth. I told him about seeing dissolved feed in her nostrils and her snorting; she finally settled down enough for him to take her temp, which was normal. He asked if I’d ever heard of choke, and I said I had, compliments of Facebook. For some reason, he said, they’d been having a rash of choke the past couple of weeks, and most of them were horses that were fed pellets. The horse gets greedy and wolfs down the food, pellets get stuck in the throat and then expand from the moisture, and the horse starts choking. Fortunately she cleared it out herself. So now we’ll be soaking her food before feeding her. Another learning experience…

So anyway, the farrier came out last week to clip her hooves, and she would have nothing to do with it. So yesterday Christian went to the vet and got a sedative, and today he came back to try again. It didn’t even phase her! So next week the vet and Barry are going to come out and the vet is going to administer the sedative and get a proper dosage figured out for her.

My nephew is up for a couple of days, and enjoying farm life.