My poor boy!

Faithful Simba keeping watch over his brother!

Poor Monarch, day 2 of his "possibly injured Gastrocnemius Tendon" just above his hock... I'm hoping the vet's diagnosis is "exaggerated"! I found Monarch in between night shifts out in the pasture with a hock swollen to twice it's normal size, a very small puncture wound to the outer aspect of his upper hock and completely lame! A vet visit later..... some new care! Every night he gets a comfy new bed of straw, feed and water. He gets a daily I.M. injection of Excenel (antibiotic), his puncture wound flushed with diluted betadine, and at least twice daily a new charcoal poultice to his wound. I also hose his hock and leg down with cold water for at least 20 mins. per day now. Initially it was a lot more often. He also gets some "Bute" to help with pain if he's showing signs of it. He has been an absolute doll for his care. I don't even have to halter him. He stands perfectly still while I jab him in the neck, or wrap his leg with dressings. He wraps his head and neck around me as if to say "thank you". Monarch is such a lovely horse!!!!!! I love him.

Poor sweetie... obviously in discomfort here. He's MUCH better now.

UPDATE! Day 4: Monarch is weight bearing on his leg and during the day is out in our smallish winter paddock. I can hardly believe how he's using his hind leg already - much sooner than I expected! I'm really feeling hopeful ****! His swelling is WAY down... things are looking better for sure. After the devastating news.... Oh I hope..........

Porch

Work on resurfacing the porch has slowly but surely been started! I've finished the sanding down now, but lo and behold after I coated half the porch in an "epoxy" we had the worst lightning/hale/rain storm blow through ever! I was so upset. I'm sick and tired of the "porch paint" etc. not lasting more than one year on this porch, that I've decided to give Epoxy a try after much research. Hey, can't be worse than what has been on there before! The next few days will tell whether or not all my hard work has been in vain after the rain we had! More photos coming soon!

This is only the beginning!

Oh ya, this is so much fun!

Where can I buy one of these - NOT! As you can see, working well into the night.

In The Saddle Again!

How wonderful to be riding again! My ribs seem to have healed up nicely and for the rest of the summer I will hopefully be spending more time in the saddle. Monarch is back from his 30 days of "boot camp" and I had my first ride on him. He was quite well behaved, but I didn't ask him for much. Simba on the other hand was being a bit of an egghead and bucked a few times when I pushed him... He's also normally very good, but I think having his buddy Monarch back home has given him a bit more of an attitude again. I'm sure I'll get that out of him soon :~)

They still come back.

Two of the three pigeons I raised last summer still come back home and scratch at my bedroom window when they want feeding! It's such a rewarding feeling, having them still come back home even though they disappear miles away to join up with a larger flock. Pictured below is Athos standing in the feed bowl. He's grown into a handsome fellow!

Back at it again!

I couldn't go too long without another furniture refinishing project... I could see through these two ugly chairs to the "cuteness".... a bit of paint and new upholstery and tadaaaaa! What cheerful and fun chairs they are now!

Isn't this fuzzy fabric fantastic! NOT.... Ew...

Nice "bones" as they say in the biz... haha...

Tadaaaaa....

Retro, fun and totally funky!

Did I mention Hawaii!!!

In March we went to Hawaii for a long overdue family holiday! It was AMAZING! None of us wanted to leave, and of course we came home questioning whether it was time for another move! It seems that we're all more warm weather, beach people and the type of climate in Hawaii would suit us perfectly. Hmmmmm.... Anyway, here's just a handful of photos from our trip... there's 100's so it's difficult to choose which ones to post and my internet is so slow that too many is out of the question! My next post will most certainly be of the endless snorkelling we did and all the underwater photos featuring a 4X surprise guest!!!!!

This was the edge of our hotel's beach - lovely!

Guess what I ended up getting for my birthday! A completely fantastic surprise! Every day I would go into this shop and play one of the Ukelele's and sing silly songs very loudly to passing by tourists. The shop owner got a real kick out of it and I think he secretly looked forward to my goofy visits. How many great laughs I had in this shop! I love my Ukelele - what a happy little instrument!