She's here!

This may be the only way we can have a female baby at this house but we've got a new foal! Got up this morning and there she was, standing with her head through the fence. Amanda and I went out and rubbed all over her and got her imprinted on us. Missy didn't seem to mind at all. Wasn't until the baby went to nurse that we realized that mama wasn't to keen on that baby crawling under her and sucking on her. She tried to kick the baby. We got on to her and tried to direct the baby in from the side instead of coming back behind mama and mama still was pinning her ears back and getting ready to kick, and Missy is not a mean horse at all. Missy and the baby wandered around and baby got behind her and Missy did get a kick in on her. We called the vet and they said they have a foal in there right now that the mother wasn't letting nurse and was kicking. They said try blindfolding the mare and ease the baby up there. If that didn't work, bring them in. Well I put a towel over Missy's head and she was ok with that... for about 30 seconds. Amanda says let's take them in. I carried the foal to the round pen so Missy wouldn't kill it and Amanda goes in to get the boys up. Missy started getting antsy because she wasn't by the baby I so run get her and bring her over. I was glad she wanted her baby. I held Missy and started expressing milk from her myself as the foal was nuzzling her. I slowly directed the foal back while praising Missy and pretty soon the foal was nursing. Got her to nurse one side, then walked her around to the other side and had her nurse there. Vet said we need to keep an eye on them today but, with all Missy has been through and with her leg being swollen and one of her teats also, it makes sense that she wasn't too keen on letting the baby nurse. They're gonna come out this afternoon and make sure the foal is getting enough and Amanda is going to have to be watching all day and make sure Missy doesn't get grumpy again but we gave Missy a larger dose of bute (painkiller) and between that and having nursed now, we think they'll be good to go.


While we were doing all this I was thinking how difficult it was when Garrett was born and he wouldn't latch on and nurse. Amanda was trying so hard and doing everything the nurses and Dr's said but it just wasn't working. Lots of women had told her "oh, it's so easy, it's so natural." Whatever. It may be, or it may not be. Garrett never did nurse really well. Luke did. With our horses the first two mares did great. Missy isn't. It depends on the mom, on the baby, depends on how much you're willing to try and be patient. With Garrett we didn't know soon enough for Amanda to pump and put it in a bottle so he had to go back in to the hospital and get an IV and sit under the tanning lamp, at least that's what I called it, to get his billirubins down. With Luke, it was easy. What matters is what I was thinking when the foal got up from her nap and went to nurse for the second time - what a blessing! The baby, how God made mothers perfectly built to care for their babies, and capable of learning when it doesn't necessarily come easy. So awesome. Just a week and half ago we thought Missy might not live and here she is healthy, well pretty skinny but with a healthy baby by her side and they're both doing well. So many awesome blessings.


If y'all want to come see the foal just holler at us and make sure we're around and come on out. We still need a name for the little girl too!

Soon, very soon!!!

No, this isn't our foal but Missy's baby should be coming soon!!! She's got colostrum now so we should have a baby pretty quick. We've had two foals here in the past and we weren't sure exactly when either of them was coming. Just got up one morning and there they were. Missy is penned up by the house now since she's getting over her illness. She had one of her legs swell up even after that so we had to do extra meds and Amanda is hydroing her leg twice a day. Because of that we've been checking the leg every day and watching her teats since we're right there looking at her leg. Two days ago nothing out of them. Tonight Amanda had me check and I tried to squeeze a little milk out and ended up squirting a huge stream. After all Missy and this baby have been through recently we really hope the baby is o.k.. The Dr's said it could still be sick when it hit the ground. We're praying for a healthy foal.

We haven't talked about a name for the baby. Don't know if it's a filly or colt, what color or anything. Daddy was a sorrell, Missy's a sorrell. Both of them have paint blood in them so it could be a paint. No telling! Post if you have any ideas of great horse names. We'll post a picture as soon as the baby gets here.

But, they're just too cute!

Do these look like killers? No way! Vet said they could have been the culprit of transmitting a disease to Lilly. We're waiting on a culture to tell us for sure but Missy, one of our other horses got sick with the same thing this week. She's pregnant and due any day now and she was also Amanda's first horse. We raced her in to the vet school because we knew how fast Lilly went down. Three days in isolation, two of them under ICU care but she is back home. We are sooo excited. They said the baby was doing bad at first but they checked again today and the baby looks good! Missy is separated from the other horses but she's getting the royal treatment. New water trough, new high dollar hay, extra feed, all her meds, she even gets yogurt to help replenish the good bugs in her gut.
It's possible that a wild bird transmitted something to the chickens and they transmitted it to the horses. But they're just too cute to be horse killers! These are actually brand new ones that we ordered and we know these guys are innocent. A couple of good looking long tailed brown and light brown leghorn roosters, some Americauna pullets (lay blue and green eggs) some puff heads and some other just cool looking birds. Can't wait for them to get big!

On a different animal note... I had two jobs in college that I didn't realize were teaching me parenting skills. One was in junior college - I cleaned out about 40 kennels each day at a dog boarding facility. The second job was at the Swine Center at A&M. I cleaned up after 100-135 hogs every day. How did those teach me parenting skills? Well, Luke walked out the front door and pooped and peed on the front step. Luckily I knew how to wash poop off of concrete, glad I had those jobs. I guess we've house trained Lukamus. Now if we could just house train the chihuahua.

These ain't no normal gophers...

I thought they were gophers. Nope. I've never seen gophers dig holes this big. See where the surface is?Notice the cave behind Chad & Will? Gophers are put to shame. Bears would be jealous. Earth moving contractors want to hire them. I need a backhoe to clean out the tub after they came in. Scrubbing bubbles won't do it. Think they are having fun? Oh yeah!
















They did finally get cleaned up. Tonight was dodgeball night. Once again, we didn't get all the good pics. Seriously, time to work on the photo skills! We're gonna try and scam some photos tomorrow from someone with a decent camera. Taking the memory stick and see if we can't steal a few snaps. Here's a great shot of, no, not action, just getting ready for action! (Notice our mascot in the goal. Only safe place for a stroller!)

Here's one of Chad after he got out. He does look pretty cool though doesn't he?!?! Should have seen him playing soccer after dodgeball. He was running over the adults. I overheard someone taunting adults on the other team - "you're getting smoked by a 4th grader". Actually he's a 5th grader if that's any consolation. I'm just glad he was on my team.
We've been having a blast having Chad and Will here this week and getting to hang out with everyone from church. Great fellowship time. Serious competition. I think I even heard some edifying trash talk. I didn't think it was possible but there was some good natured ribbing and a lot of uplifting. It was fun with the adults and kids playing together and working hard as teams.
You know what I'm amazed about? It wasn't my kid stuck in the creek! It was one of Garrett's best friends that we'll leave unnamed but his initials are HH and we go to his house every week. Just like Garrett, "Forget the path, let's go this way!"

Gophers and kickball

We have gophers. Big ones, the two legged kind. Had 6 of 'em today. 2 of ours, 2 nephews, and 2 boys from church. I'm glad we limited them to under the trampoline, somebody might break a leg. Had to make sure nobody was jumping while they were digging. Can you say headache? Last time our nephews left I spent hours filling in holes. 4 boys can really dig but 6 today, WOW! They're a lot of fun. By the end of the day Amanda was tired but good times. We're glad we get to have the boys for spring break. They planted my garden for me Sunday afternoon, we have some great video game tournaments in the evenings, lots of wrestling. It rocks! Chad, the oldest nephew, just walked up and said they had 13 holes and 20 interconnecting tunnels. Impressive.

Tonight we met a bunch of people from church at a Mexican food joint then we all went to Austin's Colony park and had a game of kickball. Regulation kickball, brand new bases. Precisely spaced bases and pitcher's mound (at least as precise as we could step them off). Then we picked teams. It became husband's against wives, parents against children. As our buddy Matt said, it was biblical. My team won. Amanda's team lost. She said the teams were unfair. Patrick picked everyone on Amanda's team. Heather picked ours. Does that mean that Heather is a better coach than Patrick? Hmmm.
That's both teams, or what was left by the time the game was over. Heather's camera is better than ours so go check her blog. She'll probably have pictures up soon. The Garner zoo +2 is down bottom right. See the shadows? Yeah, that's us!

Sad, sad, sad

OK, so my grieving process is different from some peoples. Deal with it. The picture is Lilly's grave. (No, she's not in there in the picture.) Lilly was a 5 year old palamino filly we kind of inherited from my brother. She passed away this weekend. Serious colic. Vet did what he could and we thought she was doing better that night. Nope. I made the long ramp for her grave so I could slide her in. I didn't want to drop the poor girl in a 6' hole. That's disrespectful. Amanda doesn't like the picture. Makes her sad. I like it because I could help her have a decent burial at least. Luke was telling everyone at church that Daddy was burying Lilly. Amanda said several people did double takes. "What did he say?" Garrett picked some of those little white flowers that grow like weeds in the yard. As soon as he got out of the truck he had me show him the grave so he could put the flowers on the grave. He's got a good heart. The good news is Bumper is back in the house. He's my heeler that I got when Amanda and I were just dating. One of the first times she saw him she had come over to the house and I was outside doing something. Came back in and she was laying on the couch watching tv with Bumper. I was not happy, he's not allowed on furniture. Somehow he and Amanda both won. Go figure. He's11 now. Can't hear really well. His poor ears have shriveled. He can't jump in the back of the truck anymore. He sleeps by my bed on an old quilt. He's happy. So am I.