Winter's Back

Yuck. Rain today. High of 36ish? Right now the wind is howling and it's wet. Poor Uli with his bandage on will now have to have a plastic bag wrapped around his leg everytime he goes outside. And we know how much dachsie's love rain...He's also started chewing on the bandage so I had to go to town and get him an elizabethan collar. As you can tell, he just loves it...

Busy day again. I had Tony come in this morning to clean the barn. Of course, after it was all washed, we had pigs come in for surgeries. Oh well, that's the way it goes.

Went to town for pet food and lunch. Got stopped for a train and took pictures of Ed's place. He raises alpalcas and is a client of ours. I've looked on his website and he sells these fluffy creatures for thousands of dollars each! Many people have lost money breeding alpalcas and llamas. I guess he's found a way.

And just for ancestor's sake, I took a picture of the train I was waiting on...

Work was work. The box Brandi and I shipped out Monday came back Tuesday all busted up. My gallon of 'slick' (vaginal lubricant) had broken open and soaked the box. It was not a lot of fun to clean up. So I had to repackage and send out again. It's not the first time - sometimes they are really rough with the boxes (take note shippers!). Helped with the 4 pigs this morning. One of them had 'swine lice' so I had fun collecting a few, putting them in formaldehyde, and looking at them under the microscope. Always the scientist!

Here's 3 of the pigs - lanced abcesses in 2 of them, repaired ruptures in two.

!

Equine Vaccination Clinic

Well, first there's the new signs of Spring. We had lovely sunshine today and all the animals enjoyed it to the max. Here's the dogs all trying to share the same pillow in the sun -

That's Candy, Zoey, Uli, Gerite and Teddi. Magic came and stood there for a minute looking for a spot but she gave up... Outside was just the same - 

After enjoying cleaning the horse barns and filling up the bird feeders, it was on to the Equine Vaccination Clinic. We didn't have a huge turnout - maybe people were having trouble getting their trailers out of mud! 

It went well though...good for another year.

In the top picutre you can see my table. I refill syringes, take used needles off and put new needles on, label serum separator tubes that will hold the horses' blood for their Coggins Test. Sometimes I have to move out of the way really quick if there's a 'fractious' horse. Not today though. In the middle picture is Dan with his Belgium Draft horses. Dan is a good 6'3". Look how tall he is next to his horses...I love to look at Draft horses. Don't want any - they eat a lot and poop a lot! But they are really spectacular animals.

Well, it's clean up time tomorrow. Good night!

Poor Uli

I brought Uli in for Mike to bandage his itty bitty dachsie leg. Poor Uli has had bursitis for almost 2 months and we have tried anti-inflammatories and steroids but nothing has really helped. In fact his little wrist is more swollen than ever. Mike thought some support of the joint might help so today was the day. As you can see, Uli is not sure at all of this new state of affairs.

I think he will get lots of extra attention - and he'll have to be carried everywhere of course! Uli is supposed to keep this on for 3 - 4 weeks. Should be fun...

Busy day- I was float but had scores of stuff to do in all departments. The first 3 appointments were kept for surgeries; only the first was schedueled - a Great Dane ear crop. Such a cutie. Then there was the dog with an abcessed molar tooth, and the lab with a pyometra/uterine tumor. The corgi "Wilbur" was still there from the weekend with seizures. Mike had 2 pig surgeries - hernias. Whew! Today made up for the slow last week.

After an Ear Crop...

With Natural Ears...

With Cropped Ears and puppy....

 But today turned out to be another pig vaccine day for me. Pam was surgery so she was busy, Beth had the day off, so that left me! It took me most of the morning to figure out all the 'stuff' the producer needed to have shipped. Four different things had to be made first - 800 doses of vaccine, gallon of Ear and Tail Spray (to keep pigs from chewing on each other ), 3 bottles of appetite stimulant for the new Momma pigs, and a bag of iron for the piglets. That was this morning. This afternoon I had another batch of pig stuff to get ready for Tom to take to the farm tomorrow. More vaccine (but different) and other stuff as well.

Lots of front desk time in between as Megan had to enter the slips from Saturday's clinic and Holly worked on horse coggin tests. Tomorrow afternoon I go in to work the Equine Vaccination Clinic - just Tom, Holly and me!

Better go carry Uli outside for business and get ready for bed....

Rainy Day

Rain, rain, rain. Sometimes sleet, sometimes snow. Rain. What a dreary day it is - perfect for doing nothing. Steps outside got really slick this morning but were better this afternoon. Jacky left the horses in most of the day. When he finally let them outside this afternoon, he had to go back out an hour later and convince them it was drier inside. Confused the llamas for sure.
I've been playing on my new iPad. Yep, Jacky brought me one from work - a refurbished one. I've been having trouble for a long time with the internet on my laptop and Jacky thought this would be a good fix. I've had a lot of fun exploring it - namely looking at and downloading apps (my first apps!). I found a nice one from National Geographic on National Parks - it gives directions, maps,- nice. But I also downloaded an ap on Peterson Bird Feeder Field Guide. It has the same pages as my book field guide, as well as the song of the birds, the maps, a life check list, a daly birding log...neat!!!! So I did some 'sofa' birding with my app and added a daily log today; chickadee, starling, grackle, junco, hairy woodpecker, downy woodpecker. But it was raining all day so I thought that was pretty good.
Forgot the other day to tell you about seeing a small flock of snow geese flying low overhead while I was on the road. I wsn't sure what they were until I got home but there's no mistake. The underside is all white except for the black wingtips. Beautiful! and no,this is not my picture. I haven't seen blue skies in forever!



Yesterday was our first vaccination clinic of the year - we will have three all together. My job is taking money. Just Holly and I do this but it takes time. I have to check what they need and write the prices down. Then I have to add up all the taxable products they are getting (vaccinations are not taxed) and figure out the tax. This is all done with a hand calculator. If they're getting a Rabies vaccination, I get a tag out and write down the number on their sheet. I also check to see if there's any information missing ( like phone number, weight of pet..). I take their money - cash, check, or if that's all they have, credit card and send them to the next station. whick is where the vet gives the vaccinations or takes blood for a heartworm test. No real dogfights - I caught one loose golden retriever and helped Mike give a shot to a cat in a livetrap in the backseat of the clients car (the cat was tame - the owner just used the livetrap to carry the cat to clinic. Earlier years she brought them in onion sacks!). Plus I opened up - before 7 and the clinic was from 9 - 1. After clean-up, we had a pot luck. I brought lemon bars and pumpkin bars. After that I was done. Bushed. Jacky had to work yesterday morning too so we both made our way home and chilled.
that's when Jacky surprised me with the iPad so I spent last evening setting up everything.

Another busy week. Brandi is there interning almost all the time I am - it's hard trying to think of things for her to do when it's slow in clinic for all of us. Other techs are upset when they don't have enough to do as is and I have to give jobs to Brandi. Oh well. Tuesday night is the Horse Vaccination Clinic and Holly and I are the only techs that will work that. Lots to get ready for tomorrow then. 

Until the next time! 

What happened?

Ok, where did Spring go? This was the picture from my car this early morning:



By the way, that is slush in the left hand corner of my windshield. What a mess! Luckily the temps warmed up during the day and the roads dried off. Whew! I was afraid it would really be bad this evening but it turned out fine.
Not a good day at work. And that's an understatement. Soooo I splurged and had a McDonald's for lunch - haven't done that in weeks. And tonight was the rest of that hot chili from last night and with it I decided to have a beer to relax the ol' tense muscles.
On the way home I passed another wet area in a field and ended up turning around and taking a few pictures. Here's the best one, at maximum zoom:



What I think I see out there is Whistling Swans - there were about 8 or 9. I don't know my swans that well but there aren't very many to choose from. Here's a better, closer picture from the internet:


I also think I see Northern Shoveler Ducks. I look for the chestnut (or rufous) color on the sides. Dennis also told me today a friend had been seeing these in fields so I'm probably right. Again, here's a better internet picture. In my picture above, look in the lower right corner for a male and female.


Ooh I wish I had a super good camera with a long long zoom lens.... I can barely make out colors in my photo, certainly not the wonderful shovel bills these guys have. Maybe some day... We're getting a lot of birds migrating north and they may not normally be seen here. It's exciting!
Dennis has been seeing flocks of bluebirds in his yard for the past week. They eat his high bush cranberries (of which I have some bushes) and , he thinks, box elder bugs along the house. I haven't been able to lure bluebirds here yet so I am very jealous. Anyone want to trade starlings for bluebirds???

Follow Me Day

Happy 20th Birthday Emma!!!




Huh? Well, the title just means that I had people following me around all day. This morning I had a Junior in High School doing a job shadow with me for a Money Management Class. That's what I said. She was supposed to pick a business she was interested in. Ok. Problem was I had all of one appointment this morning. Wow. I talked for two straight hours and ran out of things to tell her. Emily asked me to help Tom with a cat declaw so Morgan (the HS student) was able to observe that.  I also had her watch the dog spay - without me. There's only so much I can do.
Morgan left at 12:15 (mainly cause I said I had to break for lunch), and Brandi, the extern, came in a t 1:00. She spent the afternoon following me around. I had quite a few more appointments as well as a phone call from a client who wanted to let me know updates about Therapy Dog International. Another client came in and talked to me for an hour about cat behaviour classes. She wanted me to help her and the cats at the Animal Shelter and also hold classes for clients with cat problems. I'm really not sure how practical this would be but I gave her some suggestions and told her I'd think on it.

 

Some people think of cats like this little fellow...



Other people think of cats like this one...

Of course, all cats fall somewhere in between. Cat behavior problems are quite common place and my approach is to offer suggestions. In reality, the cats do what they want to do and the owners decide what they can live with! Cats are hard wired differently and they do not respond like dogs do. I have some success with cats but often it's figuring out the cause for a behavior and fixing that.Shelter situations are never ideal and it can be hard to help the cats when there's huge barking dogs all around them!


All shelters across the United States are overflowing with cats. We need to do something about the pet overpopulation so each life is precious - as all lives should be. Boy I'm getting preachy. It can be difficult dealing with local attitudes about pets all the time. Education is key but I haven't had much success with that. People find it hard to change how they grew up. Lets leave this blog with a happy kitten picture -

Spring!!

Signs of Spring are everywhere! It's been a very long winter (I know, we say that every year - but I really mean it this time!)
Last night started it . Jacky and I went to bed like usual. Before falling asleep - or maybe waking up and hearing it, we both could hear sounds in the other room - like bumping against the wall. I thought it was Percy, the guinea pig, although he'd never made quite those sounds before. Jacky blamed Bryn, trying to figure out what she was doing.


Well, we didn't think much of it - when there's 7 dogs sleeping upstairs with you, there's always SOME noise (Magic snores - a lot). I was almost asleep when I felt a breeze blow across my face. That was odd! My mind went to supernatural things, I must admit. But Jacky spoke up and said he thought we had a bat in the room. Well, that made much more sense! We've had bats before but then we had a cat upstairs and the cat would get it for us. Now we're 'catless' upstairs so it was up to us. Of course, last night the bedside light went out so I'm trying to turn on my kindle for a little light while feeling this breeze that now I know is a bat!
Finally we get the bedroom overhead light on and this fairly large bat is making continual circles in our room! He's actually flying quite low (about head to chest height) and I must admit I kind of crouched closer to the floor.


Luckily Jacky was able to snag him with a towel and we carried him outside and let him go. This one was a larger species than the ones we've had in the house before. I believe they come in from the sunporch - the door from that room into our bedroom has some gaps but there has to be gaps from the outside into the sunporch also. I must say it was a little harder to get back to sleep last night!
Today was cleaning day. When Jacky gets in the mood, you better get out of the way! While I cleaned I transferred old VeggieTales VHS tapes to DVDs. It took all day since we have so many of those. They were such good tapes for us when the kids were younger!

I got all the windows in the family room cleaned inside and out. What a difference that makes! And outside I saw chives already about 4 inches long, and tulip leaves! Are we finally on the upswing??? I've been seeing lots of migrating birds too. Not songbirds but ducks. Last week was a pair of Bufflehead ducks -the white spot on the head of the male really catches your eye -


I've seen others too but they won't let me get close enough with my camera to take a zoom picture. Canada geese are everywhere too, and splitting off into pairs for mating. The geese and ducks love the corn fields that are finally getting exposed as the snow melts.



Last week we actually had a Bald Eagle in the tree next to the driveway. It was maybe 50 ft form me! I was trying to get my camera ready when Anna came out of the barn and scared it. It flew a little further away and I did get some pictures - but not as good as I could have before he flew! I've never seen one so close! Except at the Eagle Center in Wabasha...


Can't wait for grass to start greening up too - neither can the horses!