Guard Horses Attack

There's this big old dog I've seen hunting out in our pasture off & on over the past 2 months. I believe he may be responsible for killing my favorite hen, Goldie, a few weeks ago. This time, I found him in my garden (next to the garage). I was leaving in the car, driving down the driveway when I noticed him. I stopped to tell him to go home, because the chickens were loose & he was "in range" to grab another one.

The dog looks like an old Golden Retriever, he moves kinda slow & I don't know how well he hears, but he heard me enough to very slowly trot away from me & out into the pasture. I believe his home is on the other side of our big pasture, which is maybe an acre or more across. Anyway, that's where he it looked like he was headed to me.

Lakota must've heard me yelling at him from the lower pasture, as I hear thundering hooves approaching. Suddenly she appears over the hill. She sees me, starts towards me in an easy lope, then sees the dog & changes direction toward him. Our other mare, Venus, is right on her heels, ready to help. I think, ok, they're just going to give him an Equine Escort off the property. Suddenly, they flatten out & pour on the speed, tearing towards this dog. They're catching him fast ... and the dog is still just trotting along his merry way. I realize they're going to overtake him. I'm yelling, but by now I'm too far away, it's windy & they can't hear over the noise in the trees & the sound of their hooves.

Reminding me of wolves hunting together, Venus races behind & flanks the old dog on the left, while Lakota pulls up on his right & swings around to kick him. At the last minute, the dog must've seen Lakota out of the corner of his eye. He slammed on his own brakes & ducked/lunged backwards, barely being missed by those flying hooves. Horrified, I stand screaming by the fence, powerlessly watching the drama unfold. Lakota, undeterred, turns back toward him, rearing up to stomp him, when finally, miraculously, she hears me. She literally stops & turns towards me while she's still on her hind legs (it looked like a dressage move), stops her attack & leaps from that position into a run toward me. Venus follows suit, ignoring the traumatized dog, and they both run to the fence, snorting & prancing, very proud of their efforts in protecting the chickens from the "evil canine terror." I praise them & pat them & give them bits of coveted "outside of the pasture" grass. I'm shaky from what I nearly saw. I don't want the dog to eat my chickens, but neither did I want to see the poor old fella get stomped to death by my indignant horses! Keeping the horses happy by me, I give the old guy time to recover himself & finish crossing the pasture.

Disaster was averted on all sides of the fence. Perhaps I need to hang "Warning - Attack Horse" signs around the property. It's definitely time to go talk to the neighbor before my horse kills her roaming dog & I get sued!

Note: I wasn't sure where the dog lived prior to this incident, but after he made it across the pasture, he crossed the street & limped up hill right to the house. Now that I know where the dog is coming from, I plan to go have a chat.

Country Blah Day

Oh sure, you think it's all daisies & sunshine, this life in the country. Some days are like that, true enough. Many days are full of more beauty than my soul can seem to bear. But more are the days like today. It's too quiet. The dogs stare at me, but they don't say anything. The chickens rush the front door every time I open it. I spill sunflower seeds all over the dining room; they bounce across the wood floor like insane beetles. There are too many of them; I am outnumbered. I ignore them for a few minutes, suddenly overwhelmed. Bored, I've begun reading my 9 year old granddaughter's book she left here at Easter. I am 44 pages into "Diary of a Wimpy Kid," which is actually much more absorbing than one would imagine. I accidentally step in chicken poop when unloading the groceries. I hear what sounds like a cougar running down the length of the roof (I know from experience it's just one of my cats) but it startles me anyway. I race outside to look at the roof just in case it IS a cougar. Fortunately, it's just Sweetie Boy, or I'd be laying mangled in my driveway right now instead of writing this. Two of my cats get mad at one another & rip each other's fur out in a fight I have to break up to end. The dogs are staring at me again. I think they secretly plot my demise. I wonder about my family, my children & their lives, my grandchildren & their futures. I hope everyone is happy, & wonder if I'm to blame if they aren't. I find myself missing my legs; my health & strength were so dependent upon them. Ugh! The quiet is deafening. Time for me to quit dwelling on it and fill it up. Crank up the music, Mother Nature is driving me mad! Jasmine iced tea in hand, music drifting thru the windows, I take a short walk in the sun with my dogs. I think maybe that's why they've been staring at me all along.

The Day After

I'm here, in another attempt to escape, at least for a few moments. It is always the same, yet every time, I set my hope on a different outcome. My head knows it's time is limited, a brief moment in the long days of my life, but for that moment, this hated day, time feels as if it is stretching into forever.

"It" is just pain. The clinic NP calls it an "Injection Flare." In my personal experience, that's like calling a tsunami "just a wave." It won't kill me, but it leaves it's ugly mark on my spirit each & every time it visits me. It embraces me with especially great fervor on this day. Like a long-lost love, it holds me as if to never let me go again. I struggle uselessly in it's embrace; it's strength is far beyond mine. Just beyond the horizon of this day, I know there lay many days where my enemy, my lover, will be in chains. His power over me will be so lessened that I may again live my life with the freedom others daily take for granted. Everyday, simple things will be mine once more - cooking supper for my husband, feeding my horses, checking the mail, going to the grocery store, taking a shower. I'll want to talk to people, re-connect with friends, at least until the descent begins anew. My ability to walk freely will lessen, more nights will be without sleep, until pain is constantly overshadowing the me that I really am. Then I will live for another month or so until the time for my next "day after."

But this day, this special day, is marked off my calendar. It is the day after "shot day," a very personal day for me. I choose these shots; I choose to endure this pain for the freedom it gives afterward. I feel guilty for complaining, since this is essentially my own doing. Yet each time I dance this dance, when I'm right in the gory thick of it, when the minutes are measured in seconds the whole of the day & night, I wonder if I made the right choice. What if it doesn't end this time, but goes on and on at this level? A person would go mad; I nearly go mad in just the one day it usually takes to clear the injection from my joints. The end has to justify the means in this case. I hold to it like a person drowning.

This day of mine is but a tiny piece of America's "health care crisis" that many of my friends insanely believe is some sort of communist/socialist ploy to take over our country's many freedoms. I see no such threat, but perhaps I'm biased. I have no health insurance. I can't get health insurance because of "pre-existing conditions." Unless I receive employer offered health insurance, which would require me to become employed. Which I cannot in my current state of health. Which will not change unless I receive proper treatment. Which I cannot afford due to lack of employment. So I go to a "nearly free" clinic, where I receive 3 hip injections a year, that lower my pain levels to about 50% for about 60 days. It does not treat my other involved joints, only these two. I do not receive any pain medication to relieve the nearly unbearable pain following the procedure, nor for the daily pain that afterward still affects my ability to walk, stand, sit or sleep. Taking Advil, at this point, is like throwing a cup of water on a burning building.

I would like to study the nature of pain, I think. It is so intimate, so personal, so horrible in it's strength. So tenacious. Yet when I'm in the midst of it, as now, I cannot sit long enough, nor think deeply enough, to do it much justice. And when it's over, when I awake & the world is once again nearly bright, I realize I've given far too much time to pain already to spend another second in it's spell, and I hobble away from the worst as quickly as my dissolving joints allow.

I can't write any more; the few moments of peace have given way once again to my lover's call. I cannot refuse or ignore him any longer. Perhaps tomorrow will come to rescue me.

Well, You've Got to Start Somewhere!

Having no idea exactly what I'm doing (which is not an unusual condition for me in the least), I nevertheless forge ahead with this blogging idea. Although an admitted Facebook addict, as a writer their format leaves little room to expand. My posts are embarrassingly long; a sure sign of someone with too much to say and no where to say it! I spend at least eight hours a day in the company of dogs, cats, chickens & horses. Although entertaining companions, they show little interest in my daily witty observations and profound discoveries. All of these extraneous thoughts, then, pile up in my tiny head until I fear my brain may explode all over my poor, exhausted husband at the dinner table one day. And who wants to clean THAT up?

I'm sure one should have some clear idea of a goal, a target audience or particular use for your blog before you create one, but I've never been one to let a little thing like lack of direction slow me down. One things certain - as long as you start out, eventually you'll get somewhere.