Morning Pictures From Around The Farm

This morning was so nice out. I got to sleep in for an extra hour and a half. Went to grab the camera to take pic while I did chores and it was dead. I had my phone though, and took a ton of pics with that. I had the whole crew out with me this morning.

Kiki, Fudge, Fudge, Bastard, Wiley, Molly

Ashley and the chickens all came too. 

Ben is all butt hurt at us. It's finally warm enough at night that we don't need a tank heater to keep the water from freezing. I threw his fat hiney in the round pen. He spends all day pacing, so he's getting some exercise with his diet. 

He eats faster then Apache, and then would clean up Apache's hay as well. He's starting to look like a hippo. Even though he's only walking, he spends most of his day moving instead of just standing in the dry lot, or laying down. A little exercise is better than no exercise. 

Apache is getting all his hay now. He wasn't getting thin really, but he wasn't packing on the pounds like Ben was. He could stand to gain a few. He's almost totally blind now from as far as we can tell. He doesn't see anything out of the left eye any more. He still stands and looks towards the garage every morning waiting for his breakfast. When I call out Pooooneeeehs, he whickers to me and can focus in on where I'm coming from. He finds his hay by smelling for it and I shake it so he can hear where it is. 

Dave turned his horses back out from his catch pen, into the pasture last night. Apache got pretty upset calling out for them and trotting back and forth along the fence. I kept an eye on him for a few hours to make sure he wasn't going to try and go through the fence, but he settled down. I would have put Ben back in with him if he had gotten too upset. By this morning he had settled back down and was eagerly looking for breakfast. 

The boys got wormed again last week. We used Zimectrin Gold. 

Dave's horses back out on pasture with Stormy looking for breakfast

The chickens even came with me this morning, clucking and talking the whole way. They followed the dogs and the cats across the dry lot out to Dave's pasture. 

You can see the chickens off on the right hand side following us back up the road.  Kiki and Bastard were right behind me

The chickens last year never really ventured into the trees out front. This year though I think they've realized the treasure box of bugs and worms hiding under last year's dead leaves. I lost Mr. Mean, the rooster, a few days ago. He followed Rebeccah's girls back through the whole in the fence. I went out there with a few scraps of chicken wire and he hasn't made it back over again. Of course Rebeccah's girls are missing out on the buggy goodness under the cottonwoods, but... 

We got most of last year's old dead grass burned out of the front pasture. With only two horses out there, there was a lot that didn't get eaten. Burning off the old dead stuff makes way for the new grass to come up better, and adds a few nutrients back into the soil faster than letting it rot away. 

Old Man Fudge got pretty heavy this last winter

I actually had to water the flower garden last evening. I have bulbs coming up all over the place. Some of them I have no idea what they are. They came to my in a box that Shelly at work had brought me. She dug them up last fall when she was redoing her flower beds. I have Dusty Millers out there that are coming back for their third year. They said they were only an annual plant when I bought them. I have a few violas that made it through the winter and have a tiny tiny flower on them. Tulips that I bought on clearance a few years ago. Daffodils that I found growing out along the bottom of the drive way that I dug up and divided out last year. I have two hyacinths at the bottom of the bed that are coming back for their third year, and a row of grape hyacinths along the house. 

And some more random pics I snapped through my morning

Apache

Bastard Kitty

Friends

Apache and Kiki

Chicken in a box

Kiki

Bastard Kitty and Kiki

   

Home Made ButterMilk Waffles, Survivial Bracelet, Wood Box

Scott made a place for me to keep firewood in the house for Christmas. It took a little bit longer than Xmas to get it to the house. He still wants to sand blast it, fix the weld joints, and make it Plum Brown to match the bed he made for me. It holds quite a bit of wood. More than I thought by looking at it. It easily holds enough for a few days. I snapped a photo of it in place in the kitchen next to the wood stove. He has plans eventually for a whole set of tables for the living room. Coffee table, end tables, plant stands, all in the same reed and cat tail pattern. I've very excited. I'm also very lucky to have a husband who is crafty and can build stuffs for me.

 

I have a better picture this morning of Scott's Survival Bracelet.  

 

I made Waffles this morning. I love this recipe.  It's easy to put together. Everything is already in my pantry or my fridge except the buttermilk. I have to remember to pick that up every time I make these. This time I bought enough for two batches, and froze the second batches worth in ice cube trays in my freezer. I'm pretty sure I found the recipe on Alton Brown's site, but I have changed it a little. The waffles are yummy when done. Crispy on the outside, chewy and soft inside. Just the right amount of salty. In fact I eat these plain for breakfast in the morning at work. Just heat in the micro, no butter, no syrup.

Butter Milk Waffles

• 2 cups flour (I used bread flour, that's what was in my pantry)
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
•  1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 3 whole eggs beaten
• 2 oz melted butter
• 10 oz butter milk at room temp

Wisk together the dry ingredients. Add in the wet ingredients. Wisk together well till almost smooth. This will be a very thick batter. Almost like cake batter.  Let sit for 5 mins while the Waffle iron heats up. Follow direction for you waffle maker. My batter and waffles came out very yellow because I'm using eggs fresh from my chickens. The yolks are a very rich orange color and oh so yummy.

I picked my waffler up at a thrift store for $2.50. It is forever old. I looked it up online, but couldn't find when it was made. All I care is that it still works, and makes the perfect size to stuff into a small sandwich ziplock baggie. They break into four pieces.

Rainbows, Home Made Hot Pockets, Para Cord Bracelet, New Chihuahuas

We had a little rain and wind the other day. I snapped this pic off the side porch of the house. Pretty huh? 

I've tried once before to make hot pockets when the kids were still living here. They were...OK. I used pie crust, mozzarella, pizza sauce, and pepperonis. It didn't seem to make near as much food as the work I put into it. I couldn't get the edges to seal well. The pie crust puffed up too much. I just wasn't very happy with the results even if the kids did gobble them down faster than I could pull them out of the oven.

Somewhere while surfing the web I ran across the idea of using pizza crust. I don't remember where I saw it. I wasn't even sure I remembered it right. I went on ahead and bought 4 packages of WallyWorld's pizza crust mix though. I love cheese steak pizzas. I'm also very cheap. I didn't want to spring for a single package of thin sliced steakums when I was already buying hamburger in bulk. So I've been making these pizzas with ground hamburger.

Cheese steak hot pockets

2 packages of ready to mix pizza dough

1/2 pounds ground hamburger

1 jar alfredo sauce

1/2 green pepper diced

grated mozzarella (honestly I forgot how much of this I started with when I started grating, and I ate some while I was working)

   optional- sauteed onions and mushrooms. These are really yummy, but wreak havoc on my tummy, so I skipped them this time.

This made enough for 6 pockets, and enough dough left over for a small personal pizza.

• Brown hamburger and peppers. Salt and pepper to taste. While the hamburger is cooking, preheat the oven and start the pizza dough in two batches. It will have to set for 5 mins and rest. 
• Roll out one batch of the pizza dough in a big rectangle.
• I made notched in the dough to divide it into 6 hot pockets  
• Add 1 tbs spoon of alfredo sauce in each square and spread, leaving room around the edge to seal the pocket.
• Pile the hamburger, peppers, and cheese on the alfredo sauce

• Roll out the other batch of dough to cover
• Cut into six pockets
• Seal each edge of each pocket by pressing gently with your fingers, then gently with a fork

I think I baked these on 385 for about 20 mins or until golden brown. I watched my oven because I knew the pizza was going to be done before the pockets.

I've been fiddling a little bit with Para Cord Bracelets. I made one for Scott a bit ago, and one for Mike. I don't know what the kind of know was, and I'm too lazy right now to go look it up. I just scrolled through some videos on YouTube until I found something I liked. Scott asked me if it was possible to make one for him a little flatter and a little wider. So again, off to YouTube I went. This is what I came up with this time. Sorry, crappy phone cam doesn't catch the color right, but I liked it. So did Scott.

I haven't taken any good pics of them. I'm such a slacker Mommy. I took two chihuahuas home from work. They were a customer's of mines. He just didn't want to deal with two needy little dogs anymore. Too much work for him. Their names are Molly and Wiley. Molly is the red female, and Wiley is the tan male. Scotty calls them the Sorrel and the Palomino. They are 2 years old this past Feb. Both spayed and neutered. Molly is neurotic, but we're working on. Wiley is a snuggle bunny. 

Frosty Foggy morning

I meant to put this post up a few weeks ago when the weather happened. I put the pics up on face book and totally forgot about putting up a post here.

 I woke up to a heavy fog. The kind were you can't see the neighbor's house across the street. You can't see the hitching rail in your yard from the front door at 2:30 in the morning when you go out for that last armload of wood to stoke the fire before you fall asleep for the night. The kind that really isn't fog, but is a low hanging cloud that is parked over your house, settles on the ground and is letting out a misty, spitting, spray that from the sky and coats everything in ice. Freezing fog. It was just at the edge of being too warm to freeze and be snow, but freezes up once it's stuck to some solid object.

I got a phone call from the neighbor at 5am. My day off of course. I didn't get to the phone in time, but got a frantic voice mail, there is a horse loose, one of the truck drivers from Glanbia almost hit it, please, please go check and make sure your boys are where they are supposed to be. She'd checked her horses and they were still penned up.

I grabbed up a flashlight and went outside to check. I had to be almost on top of the dry lot to see, but yep, both geldings where blinking at me from the dry lot, wondering if it really was time to be awake and fed. Nope. Walked down the drive getting coated in a fine wet mist and back to check on Dave's horses out back. I couldn't see a thing past the fence, but I could see that his gate was still closed. Romeo, one of his geldings, has been known to be an escape artist, but everything was still locked up tight.

Over to the neighbors with my flashlight and a halter. What I thought I was going to catch was beyond me, but the need to be a hero sometimes out weighs my common sense. The guys were on the front porch talking, and told me there was a loose horse in the empty field next to the house. They had seen it, but it dissapeared into the mist before they really could tell what color or where it came from. They didn't think it was wearing a blanket, so they didn't think it was one of mine, but it was for sure going to get hit by someone coming down the road.

It was coming up on shift change at the plant and people were going to be rushing to get to Glanbia, or heading home after a 12 hour shift. The road we live on has a 50 mph speed limit, and you couldn't see from one telephone pole to the next down the road. Hitting a 1000 pound horse at 50 mph in the early morning was going to kill both the driver and the horse.

Armed with my flashlight and halter I walked into the field, stopping every few feet to listen. I could see the headlights from the neighbor's truck making a pitiful attempt to cut through the fog from across their pasture and into the field. Big moving blobs of shadows in their pasture was their two horses blowing and snorting at the something that was me out in the dark where, there shouldn't have been anything.

I was a few hundred feet from their fence line walking on what was left of the tracks from the heavy trucks that had been in that previous fall harvesting the corn.  I could see my feet in the light from the flashlight, but not much beyond that. I see the neighbors horses ahead of me and off to the side when the suddenly get excited and start making those whinny and nickering noises horses make when they see another strange horse. That bugger had just walked up past me, between me and the fence, and I never even saw it.

It's a big dark shape snorting and dancing there at the fence line. Poor thing is got it's head in the air, blowing out it's nose, and you can tell it's spooky. I tried to walk up slowly, but it just trotted back towards the road. I can just barley make out the palomino across the road trotting back and forth against Roger's fence line across the street. The horse I'm following in the bay mare that is supposed to be in with him. She walked back across the street and into Roger's yard. We can't get close enough to get a halter on her. I know she's not broke at all. Rusty walks with me over across the street.

Roger is deaf, he can only hear with his hearing aids in. Banging on the front door and calling his cell phone meet with nothing. I can't even see where the mare got out, or a gate to get her back into the pasture in his front yard. I'm prepared to stand and guard the driveway till either he wakes up, or it gets daylight enough to see. There isn't anywhere for her to get back out on the road except for the driveway. This is really not something I Want to have to do. It's freezing outside, and even though I have on my overalls, winter coats, insulated gloves, and my hat, it's going to be a cold, wet wait. It's something I Was Going to do though to make sure she didn't get hit.

My neighbor comes over to help Rusty and I try and figure out what to do. He's a big guy. He banged a lot harder on the door than I had. YAY! Roger wakes up. We got a halter on the mare, and found out where she'd busted through the fence. We put her away, they fixed the fence,and I finally went home and back to bed.

The fog continued through the early morning and made for a beautiful sight when I woke up. Be prepared for some picture spam. 

Tree behind the kitchen

Boys, looking towards Will and Andrea's  

Boys, looking towards Dave's

Even Stormy's eyelashes got frosted

Benjamin

Ben, frosty mane

Pumpkin and Romeo, frosty tails

Dave's tractor

Trees out front, looking towards Rebecca's 

Calves, chicken and dumplings and Chicken Lips?

The neighbors went ice fishing this last weekend, and I went over and fed the critters for them. Horses, chickens, and the calves. The one with the dark face is ours. I haven't updated much about Bacon, our calf, because he doesn't stay here on our property yet. This spring when we stop feeding hay and the grass is comes in, he will come live here. I did get some pictures while I was over there. He's a Jersey steer, and they don't grow very fast or very big.  He's just under a year old.

Scott had to have a tooth pulled last week. I get to go in tomorrow. Bleh. I was thinking of foods that were easy to make, what I had in the cabinet, and something that was easy to eat. We haven't had chicken and dumplings in a while. Scott likes it fresh off the stove. It has a tendency to turn into paste as he calls it when reheated. 

Chicken and Dumplings

One whole chicken

one stick of butter

three chicken bullion cubes

one whole small onion

three carrots

four stalks of celery

one glove garlic

one batch of Bisquick dumpling mix

one can butter milk biscuit rolls

salt and pepper to taste

Rinse chicken and place in a large stock pot. Add your butter and bullion cubes. Don't peel the carrots, garlic, or onion, just snap the carrots in half, snap the celery in half and add veggies to the pot. Add salt and pepper to taste. Fill pot with water to cover everything. Cover and boil everything until the chicken is falling off the bone. Empty pot into a strainer over a large bowl. Add the broth back into the stock pot. Pull all the chicken off the carcass. The carcass goes into a bag and into the freezer to make chicken stock for later. Pull the chicken apart into chunks and add back into the pot. Return to the stove and bring back to a boil. I cut the rolls into fourths and add to the chicken and broth. Pull the Bisquick dumplings into small chunks and add. Boil away for about 15 minutes or so. The Bisquick will thicken up the stock. YummiE

While browsing the grocery store the other day making sure I had everything I needed for the chicken and dumplings I happened to look over at a for sale sticker in the frozen section. It was empty but the sticker was still there...

Um... What?! I didn't know chickens even had lips let alone that I would find them in the grocery store. Hm.... So I just had to take a picture and text it to all my friends and family so they could get a laugh out of it as much as I did. 

Ground venison stroganof

I was given a pound of ground venison from one the girls at work from the deer her son shot. I had a container of sour cream that we just barely broke into the other night when Scott made taco for dinner. The girls just started laying eggs again. Venison stroganof for dinner with home made egg noodles for dinner it is, woot!

1 pound ground venison
half a small onion chopped
2 tbl spoons oil
3 bullion cubes
16 ounce container of sour cream
one batch of home made egg noodles
two dashes of garlic salt
two dashes of seasoned salt
pepper to taste
2/3 cup water
1-1/2 ts corn starch

egg noodles
2 eggs beaten
1 tbl spoon butter
2-1/2 cups flour
pinch of salt

Start your noodles first. They are going to need some time to rest and then dry.
Mix all ingredients in a bowl with a wooden or large plastic spoon until it gets too tough to stir. Start squishing with your hands until all ingredients are incorporated. Turn out onto a hard surface and kneed until smooth, about 5 minuets. Cover with a damp towel and let rest for 10 mins. I lightly wiped the dough with a little water since I Was having a bit of a time getting everything to come together and smooth out. I divided the dough and rolled out half at a time to about 1/4 inch thick. If we hadn't broken the pizza cutter and not replaced it, they make a great cutter for making the strips of noodles. Place in a single layer on a piece of wax paper or parchment paper to dry. Repeat with the other half of the dough. I think I let mine dry for about an hour.

Start a pot of salted water to boil. In another pan add your oil and heat. Brown ground venison on med heat. Add spices, billion cubes, 1/3 cup water and stir well. Add in your chopped onions and cook till translucent. Drain the venison and onions and add back to the pan. Add in the sour cream and stirring occasionally let things boil down a little. Your water should be boiling for the noodles by now. Drop into the boiling water by the handful and cook to desired tenderness. Drain noodles. Mix the remaining 1/3 cup water and corn starch and add to the meat mixture, stirring until thickened. Serve over noodles.

This was so yummy. I ate two bowls, the neighbor was over and she had two bowls, Scott had some for dinner, some for lunch the following day, and took it for dinner to work that night. I did mix it all in together in the pan before putting it in the fridge, and that's the picture.

Thoughts on being prepared

     Prepared for what you might ask? Like the end of the world? Alien invasion? Nuclear war? Nope. Just the little stuff. We were supposed to get 3-6 inches of snow today and tomorrow. Tomorrow is supposed to be very windy, blowing/drifting snow. The North East of the the country is getting hit by a massive winter storm, blizzard conditions. Thousands of people are going to be without power. 

This isn't the first big storm of the season. Hurricane Sandy, ice storms, flooding and snow last year left so many people without power. No power also means no water for most people. Can't cook. Can't even flush the toilets. Even without massive super storms you could be left in a situation like this. Mild flooding causes a contaminated water supply. This happened to us in Arkansas a few times a year. We'd have a boil your water alert. An 18 wheeler swerving off the road and taking out a few power poles could leave you in a situation for a few days where you were in trouble power wise. How hard is it to get a few things in order for just in case? 

Water is easy to store. How many people have empty milk jugs, empty two liter soda bottles they throw away every week. Why can't you just rinse, fill, and store a few of these under the bathroom sink? Fill the bathtub when you know a storm is coming. 

A rocket mass stove is built out of soup cans for goodness sake. It's a few soup cans and a larger can. It runs off sticks. Not fire wood, sticks. You can boil water on it in about eight minuets. Here, instructions.

One of these can be stored in the bottom of your closet with a small bundle of sticks. 

It's so nice to have your food stamps loaded onto one of those swipe cards that you use like a debit card. It's great that you have a credit card stashed for emergencies. Fat lot of good it does you when you realize that you can't run one of those through the ATM or get a cash advance with no power. A week later, and you still can't buy food, fill your gas tank, or get toilet paper. Again with the empty 2 liter bottles. Fill one with rice, one with flour, one with sugar, one with dried beans. It may be tasteless for a little while, but you won't starve to death. Stash a couple packets of yeast and a small bottle of oil and you can still bake bread. A small box of powdered milk might taste like crap when mixed with water and you try and drink it, but it's perfect when used to cook with. Buy an extra can of soup every time you go to the grocery store and stick em away in a cabinet for just in case. 

Did you know you can shove a piece of cotton twine down through the center of a can of Crisco and you have a candle that burns for ages? You don't have to get special emergency candles or oil lamps, even though I have them. 

I'm not talking about being, "One of those crazy, prepper, nutters wearing a tin foil hat." Just being aware of how to think ahead for just in case.

I have food in the freezer that can last us for over a week. We may be eating a lot of pork chops and two turkeys in short order, but we won't starve. I have dried, home canned, store bought cans, and bought dehydrated stuff in my pantry. Flour, rice, beans, sugar, yeast. Sure when you open my cabinets there looks like there is nothing to eat, because there isn't ready made crap to just munch on. I have things that you may have to make into other things from scratch. I don't have enough stuff to last through the Zombie Apocalypse, but I do have enough non potable water in the garage to flush, milk jugs of water in the pantry to keep us for a week.

It's not where I want to be in concerns to preparedness, but it's a start. I won't be one of the sheeple waiting with my hands out and my pants caught around my ankles, waiting for the gooberment to come save me from my own self. 

The girls got a new boyfriend today

When we got the chickens last year they came with a rooster. They were all Jersey Giants. The rooster was never very thrifty, he was an older bird, and never seemed to be able to get the job done and give me little baby chicks. He wasn't here too long before he started getting skinny, and one morning he just wasn't here any more. I let my chickens free range during the day, and I'm not sure if a hawk picked him off or where he went. I never found any traces of him.

Winter came on and with the shortening of the daylight hours the girls' egg production came to a halt. We thought about putting a light in the coop, but the girls decided to molt and would be putting feather production before egg production, so we just let them rest through the winter. I wanted to replace the rooster before then, but we never got around to it, and with the girls not laying it wasn't something I was worried about it.

In talking with my neighbor, and admiring her chickens (mine are all boring black) she told me how she had split a chick order with a friend of hers, and had gotten 10 little Silver Laced Wyandotte pullets. She was pretty sure one of them was turning out to be a rooster. She didn't want another rooster. She had little bantam chickens and one of them was already a rooster. A big rooster would harass the little girls until he might crush or kill one. She asked me if  I might be interested in her rooster. Absolutely.

This morning when she went out to feed, she locked up the rooster, and this afternoon she loaded him into a crate and brought him over to me. What a handsome man he is. He settled in to eating pretty quick and within the first 15 minuets of being in with the girls he was trying to get down to business. I'm hoping with loading him into a crate, and driving him over instead of handing him off over the fence line I won't have to worry about him wanting to go back where he came from. I'll keep him locked up with the girls for a week and see what happens.

In other chicken news, the girls all finally decided that they were going to use the condo as a roost again, and all five of them slept in the top where they belonged for the last two days. I would have between 1 and 3 of them go up the ramp and sleep in the top at night. I still had one hold out that wanted to jump in the rabbit hutch for the night. After many many evenings of gathering everyone up and placing them in the top of the condo, we finally got it all right.

Here's the new rooster.

Ah ha moment about shipping a horse off to the sale

All this time I've been thinking judgmentally in my head about the sad adds I see on Craigslist from awful owners who want to dump their poor old horse that's too old to be pumping out babies, or ride any more. That poor old/or crippled horse who has devoted their whole life to making babies, or giving trail rides, and now that it's not useful anymore, you want to dump it at the sale. You know what's going to happen at the sale. The meat man is going to buy it, and ship it to the processor, and it's going to go for dog food. But hey, it didn't happen where you can see it, so it's ok, Right?

I see adds for horses that are permanently lame, I've know a few people who sent their horse to the sale, or have an unrideable horse out on their property and they are talking about making the decision to send the horse to the sale. "I won't keep a horse I can't use. I can't afford to keep a pasture pet." I've always looked down my nose and thought, "That is so uncaring." Euthanasia costs a lot more than some people can afford. And then there's the problem of having the deceased animal hauled away. That ain't cheap either. 

The past year or so we've had to sell two great horses. My daughter's paint gelding and my husbands paint mare. Both sales were thought out this way. I know I can sell this horse to pay for the feed for the remaining horses. I can get more money for the horse I am selling than for the ones we're keeping. It was a hard hard decision to sell them. I didn't want to do it. I hoped like hell that the money fairy would come visit, I could bury my head in the sand, and everything would be ok. We're down to two horses. I know we can afford to buy hay for two horses. No more. We could maybe have kept three, but they would have been three skinny, sorry looking horses come spring if there was a brutally cold winter. That's just something you can't predict.

Now I'm faced with a gelding going blind. This is my heart horse. He's small, he's got steep shoulders, an ewe neck, thin chest, scrawny mane and high withers. And I love him. He walks out faster than any other horse I've ridden, he will come over and let you love on him all day, he loves to go out and see the world and ride all day, and he's got ERU, and eventually will be totally blind. He's only 7.

I know I can afford to feed two horses.

I'm going to miss out on a lot of the riding plans we had for the future. I can't take him hunting up in the mountains. Even with sight in one eye, his depth perception is shot. Sure people ride and compete on completely blind horses all the time. On The Flat. Not in the mountains. Some of the places we ride I've asked myself, are we really going to make it out of here with out some one going ass over tea kettle, and needing a trailer to come haul us out?

I can afford to feed only two horses.

So all of a sudden I'm faced with the thought of what so many other horse owners must go through when they realize they have a horse they can't use. I won't ship him to the sale. If he ever becomes a danger to himself or others, I'll have him euthanized and rent a back hoe. But I see where the thought of I have to get a different horse when the one I have isn't useful anymore. I need a horse for Scott, and I need a horse I can ride all over the mountains and desert and back, and Apache might not be that horse for much longer.

All of a sudden I find myself realizing where the people I've looked down my nose at are coming from, and it's not a nice place to be. 

Diagnosis of equine recurrent uveitis

Apache went to the vet Friday afternoon. The vet he saw used to work at the  Equine Ophthalmology Clinic here in Idaho. He said it's definitely ERU. He's lost most of the sight in his left eye, and he could see the beginnings of damage in his right eye. This is really disappointing news. I knew what the answer was going to be before we even went to the appointment, but I still hoped. 

I remember this summer Apache's eye clouded over. I saw three little white spots in his eye. I thought maybe he had rubbed it from irritation from the heavy fly problem we had this last year. I had gotten some 2 oz Animal Ophthalmic Gel and treated his eye twice a day for a week and a half till the cloudiness and the irritation went away. All summer long he squinted and had weepy eyes. Looking back, these are all symptoms of ERU. All along he's had hazy, not crystal clear eyes. 

The vet isn't 100% sure if it's just the fluid/gel inside the pupil that the lens rests in that is the problem, or if it's the lens itself in the left eye. If it's just the gel, then there is some hope for him to regain some of the sight back. In the right eye, he's sure it's just the fluid in the back of the eye. Either way, the fluid will eventually crystallize  and the lens will cloud over completely in both eyes. 

This was a great website with some reasons for ERU, and support for the owner. 
http://www.equinatural.co.uk/UveitisSupport

Right now we're putting a steroid ointment in his eyes twice a day for a week. Let me tell you that trying to argue and wrestle with a 900 pound horse when it's 10 degrees outside first thing in the morning is not a pleasant experience. I have to have my gloves off, he doesn't want to stand still, he doesn't want me mucking about with his eyes, and all he has on his mind is FOOD. I have done some research and it looks like I'm going to be adding a low dose aspirin to his feed once a day. It helps keep the inflammation down, and looks like it may also help in preventing flare ups. 

Frozen frost free hydrants and equine recurrent uveitis

I love my husband. Our "Frost Free" hydrant froze the other day. This is the spigot you see sticking up out of the ground on with the handle that looks like an old water pump handle. As long as you disconnect the hose and drain it well, it's supposed to keep from freezing up even when the faucets off the house won't work. Supposed to being the key word here.

The way the are designed to work is there is a little tube coming off the pipe towards the bottom, and this drains into a little gravel pit. The water in the pipe drains out, and there is nothing to freeze inside the pipe. Somehow it seems that ours got plugged. The ground is frozen solid right now, with no hopes of digging four feet down to clear it out. We got some heat tape for it and that was working great, no issues. Well until Tuesday that is.

Scott got home Tuesday morning after I had watered Mon night, and it was froze up. The heat tape plug had come undone from the extension cord. He plugged it back in and we hoped for the best. Tues evening when I got home, it had come unplugged again. Still frozen.

I unplugged the tank heater, I knew they were going to drink it down far enough over night, that I didn't want the tank heater to burn up. Scott, bless him, got up at 7 in the morning to go work on it. He was out there with the propane weed burner trying to unfreeze everything. He dug out the soggy ground around the pipe and was able to get down far enough to get it all flowing again. Took him four hours. I had to run into town and get him more propane before I left for work. He put more heat tape on it, fixed the plug so it would stop falling out, and so far, everything has been fine. It'll be a major project come spring to make it all work again the way it's supposed to.

Equine recurrent uveitis

This is the way a hosre's eye should look. Even for an old man, the eye is clear, the pupil is black.

Apache's eye is not looking like that. The eye itself has a haze over it. The inside of the pupil looks like there is silver shining out from the back. There is non of the crispness in the colors of the iris like Ben's eye.

Even the right eye has a haze over it. I talked to my sister and it doesn't look good. As quoted from http://www.vkirkwood.ca/eru.htm, "Equine recurrent uveitis, sometimes known as moon blindness, is a disease of the horse's eye that can be caused by many different things -- bacteria, virus, parasites, or trauma.

Signs that an eye is in distress include redness, swelling, pus, pupil constriction in the dark, cloudiness, squinting, and photophobia. Uveitis is often diagnosed as something far less serious and valuable treatment time is lost. If not treated aggressively from the onset, there is less chance of saving sight in one or both eyes. Unfortunately, even with very aggressive treatment, some eyes cannot be saved, but in other cases the disease can be halted or at least slowed down." There is more literature on their page.  

Orange Vinegar Cleaner

That glass jar that's been sitting on my counter since Thanksgiving has been getting, "The Look." That look that silently asks me if I'm aware I have a jar of something that looks like it might be a disgusting something I forgot to wash. I just giggle. It's my new batch of orange cleaner. After a while the vinegar gets thick as it drawls all the oils out of the peels, and the orange leeches out leaving them a grey-ish sort of color. It does look a little like a jar of something that was pushed behind something else on the counter and forgotten about. I did forget to take an after pic.

 I finally got a chance to use my new cleaner today. I used it on the laminate floors and all the counter and table tops. I was really happy with it all around.

The Recipe
One large glass jar
White vinegar
Orange peels
I throw the orange peels in the freezer until I have enough to fill the jar. Fill the jar with vinegar after all the peels are in. Tighten the lid and forget it. Well don't completely forget it. I shook and flipped mine once a week, so it's good to leave it on the counter where you'll see it. Leave for 6-8 weeks.

Using it, I strained the liquid into a plastic spray bottle. I got about a cup and a half of concentrated cleaner. I added some hot hot water to the jar with the peels and swished it around. That stuff is thick. I filled the sprayer almost full the rest of the way and went to cleaning. Next time I think I'll use a larger glass jar. I'd like to have some straight concentrate to try on the greasy stuff in the kitchen.