Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Keep on, keeping on

The dogs and I have been keeping up with our walking activity on most days.  How exciting...not.  But, I have noticed that my legs seem to be more conditioned, which is encouraging.  Out of 7 days last week, we walked only 3 days because we had a fair amount of rain, and I do have to look somewhat presentable at work.  The trails are quite muddy in the park now, so our walking is limited to the pathways that have wood chips or on the sidewalks and roadways.  Technically, the park is still closed for winter so that works in our favor because there's no traffic to contend with.  The dogs are loving it!  I enjoy it too, but would certainly look forward to my walks more if I had someone to walk with.  The dogs aren't much for idle chit-chat.

Last weekend, our son Justin was here from Nez Perce, Idaho.  He has a buyer for the Porsche that we've been storing for him, so bye-bye car and hello camper.  Justin brought down an old camper for his dad to fix up.  It's the strangest thing.  It's really more of a 1/3 camper, as it's only about 4 feet long and fits inside the pick-up box with about a 6-8" hangover on each side.  It has 2 seats and a little table in the center and windows on each side, and a full-sized door in the back.  There's a slider window in the front that matches up with the slider window in our truck.  You can remove the table and it converts to a single-wide bed.  We're thinking to use it as a dog-hauling camper.  :)  Cool!!  I'm sure the dogs won't agree, but they'll get used to it.  They are just too big to be in the cab with us when we go on trips or whatever.  Annie sprawls all over between us and poor Ruby ends up on the floor, or sitting atop of Annie.  Just a little too cozy for our comfort!  So after hubby replaces some of the wood, which has dry rot, we'll make good use of it.

My friend Claudia delivered our second order of fresh produce from Bountiful Baskets.  You don't have to order, but if you want the produce, it's available every other week.  We did pretty well with the last delivery, eating up almost everything that we got.  Except for the two sweet potatoes and a few remaining apples, everything is gone.  We ate the spinach a couple of nights ago, and oh my!!!  It was heavenly!!!  I'm going to be preparing fresh spinach a lot more often...delicious!  I rinsed the leaves, removed the large stems and cooked it in a frying pan with about 1/2" water, a pat of butter and about a teaspoon of minced garlic. I didn't even add any salt or pepper and it was just too good to be true!!


Here's this weeks' bounty of goods.  There's a 5 lb. bag of baby Yukon Gold potatoes, 2 large pieces of broccoli, 2 bunches of lettuce, some Fuji apples, oranges, lemons, limes, blood oranges, 2 papayas, a piece of ginger, a coconut, 2 pineapples, 2 vanilla beans, carrots, leaks, bananas and some fresh mint.  I think that's about everything.  Whew!  I love having all this fresh produce to pick from.  :)  I'd never seen purple or yellow carrots before, but they taste the same as the orange ones.  Who knew?  I think I'll try making chips or mashed potatoes out of the sweet potatoes.  They are not favorites of mine, or my hubby, but we'll eat them so they don't go to waste.  And, they're really good for you.


Here's one of our dinners from last week.  Steamed green beans, spaghetti squash with a little butter, salt & pepper and a hamburger.  Oh my, the spaghetti squash was delicious!!  I'll definitely be buying that more often.  And so easy to prepare.  Just cut in half (this is the hardest part) and lay face down in a shallow pan with some water.  Bake for about 30ish minutes or until you can easily scrape the squash out with a fork.  So good!  Oh, and don't forget to remove the seeds.  Silly me, forgot that part!  :)

We had a very quiet weekend.  We took our little horse trailer down to the local car wash and pressure washed the mold and dirt off of it, and washed our truck too.  Amazing how much better everything looks when they're clean!  We stopped at the local feed store and bought a few bags of Purina Senior for the horses and then stopped at the grocery store on the way home for some milk and some bread.  I love how there's so much less shopping to do when fresh produce abounds.  Justin took us out to dinner to our little Mexican restaurant in town, and it was delicious.  My hubby ordered his usual Taco Salad Cazuela and JP and I ordered veggie burritos.  My favorite!!  They grill all kinds of fresh veggies, add some rice and beans and roll up in a giant tortilla, add some burrito sauce and top with sour cream and guacamole.  So good!!
Good grief, all I'm doing is talking about food.  Sorry...told you it was a quiet weekend.  :)

I haven't yet ridden little miss Sugar, but I want to.  I think our weather's supposed to clear up a bit, so maybe I'll get a chance this week.  I hope so!  It sure doesn't take much rain to muck everything up again.  We're still doctoring Harley's eye.  He has a corneal abrasion in his left eye, which formerly was his best eye.  Now, with this most recent injury, he's seeing pretty much nothing.  I feel so sorry for him.  It's actually been much worse since my boss came out and debrided his eye.  I'm not sure if that made it more sore, or if the eyeball itself suffered more damage when the abrasion was being scraped.  All I know is that we've been faithfully putting the medicine in his eye morning and night, and he's been on Banamine twice a day for pretty much 2-1/2 weeks now.  Without the banamine, the eye still swells dramatically, so I'm still giving it to him.  I can tell that it's still painful because he's always squinting and the eye tears all the time.  I don't know what else to do.  We keep his fly mask on if it's even a little bit sunny out, not sure if that helps or not.  I've had to put the bell on Kadie again, because poor Harley totally freaks out if he doesn't know where she is at all times.  It just breaks my heart to see him upset and uncomfortable.  I hate to think what he's going to be like when something happens to my sweet, old girl.  I can't even bear to think about that.  Harley's my baby.  He was born into my arms and he's just the most sweet-natured horse ever.  Shouldn't have happened to him.  I just hate it!  But there's not a damn thing that I can do about it.  I pray all the time for healing and recovery, but for whatever reason, my prayers are not answered where Harley is concerned.  Faith isn't always an easy thing.  And especially when someone we love is hurting.  Sure wish I understood why...not that it matters.  It is, what it is.

  
This is a picture of my sweet Harley peaking above his beautiful momma's neck.  He still had his sight then, and we had no idea what was looming in his future.  His mom had bum luck in her life too.  She had laminitis or chronic founder.  We were never able to figure out why because all tests came back negative, she had never over eaten any grain, or spring grasses, wasn't overweight, none of the usual suspect things.  She never had retained placenta either.  The only thing we could theorize was a cause, were hormonal changes that occurred each spring when she began having heat cycles.  We tried for years to keep her sound, but eventually had to let her go.  She was a perfect horse with unsound feet.  She was an angel and I still miss her to this day.  I still feel blessed to have loved and cared for her though.  And she loved her boy, more than anything, she loved Harley.  They were quite the pair.  He looks very much like her.  Dear, sweet Scooter.  Her registered name was Mis Star of David and she had an impressive pedigree in the ApHC with several famous horses in her lineage.  We got her because she was built like a tank and had the most beautiful coloring that I'd ever seen...she was my dream horse.  I rode her only a handful of times, and then sweet Scooter gave birth to a little Harley.  I was right there when he was born, and I'll remember it always.  Incredible, awe-inspiring miracle of birth.  I'd never even seen a puppy or a kitten being born before that.  I was all alone that morning, and I was terrified and so very excited.  I stayed with Scooty the whole time, petting and talking softly to her, and then when the foal was halfway out, she took a break.  I cut the sack from Harley's nose and he looked into my eyes and blinked several times.  I was in love!  We'd planned on selling the foal, but there was no way!  When Scooter was rested, she finished her job.  True to his nature, Harley layed there nickering and looking around for almost 2 hours before he even thought about getting up. When he was ready, he got up and nurses.  He still prefers sleeping in to waking up early, even now.  That's my boy!  He's relaxed and always takes time to smell the roses.  :)

Blessings everyone,
Lorie @ Cingspots


9 comments:

Oak Creek Ranch said...

It breaks my heart to read about your sweet Harley. Sometimes, for me, it is earier to pray for comfort and peace rather than healing. I have a hard time with Jackson still. Your produce makes me miss getting a basket. We stopped last winter but I think I might start getting it again (like you, every two weeks). There just isn't anything close to that produce in the store. It tastes so good -- and we eat healthier because we have so much of it around. Try cooking the sweet potato and then mashing in with regular potatoes. You get mashed potatoes with a sweet edge. Very popular with my family.

Anonymous said...

Sorry to hear about Harley's eye troubles - those corneal ulcers can be real bears to treat - Red had one last year that lasted for months - the vet called it and "indolent" ulcer. He had to have it debrided once, too - it healed over the surface but hadn't healed underneath so had to be opened up again.

Hope it heals soon so he doesn't hurt and can see a bit better.

Carolynn Anctil said...

My exercising has been a bit off & on lately, too. I really didn't have the energy or initiative to get on my treadmill this morning, but I forced myself and I feel better for it now. That basket of food is amazing. Such variety! I LOVE spaghetti squash. It's my favourite and I could eat it every day.

Sending warm thoughts of healing your way for all your critters.

Paint Girl said...

I'm so sorry to hear about your sweet boy Harley. I loved hearing your story on his birth. So sweet!
The food looks fantastic!

Jenn said...

The purple carrots have a bit more carotene in them than orange ones do...I grow 'em and they look so pretty shredded in salad. :)

Hoping Harley's eye gets better and that he doesn't lose his sight completely. It has to be terrifying for him to live in a dark world! Poor guy.

Stephen Andrew said...

Poor Harley baby :( I'd love to walk the dogs with you, and Barbie would love the friends!

RURAL said...

The love you have for those horses just shines through in this post...I'm so sorry he has to live through such hardship.

Amazing to get a basket of anything fresh this time of year....wow.

Jen

Unknown said...

Poor Harley, that has to be tough. What a beautiful story about his birth. I sure hope his eyes heal, will send some healing prayers your way.

Those baskets sure do look yummy.

Thank you for your words today. I needed to hear the atta-girl and the KISS theory. Seriously, Thank You!

Sherry Sikstrom said...

so sad about Scooter, and Harley ! what a wonderful dear boy! Only those truly special horse hold our hearts in quite the way he does yours , my blind mare (suffered from the same as Harley ) Sunshine was just such a horse