Author Archives: Frances

Took to my bed

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Last night, I crawled into bed immediately after supper and stayed there, armed with valium, naproxen and an acupressure mat determined to get my back under control.  Recently it has been deteriorating and last night was the final straw that literally broke this camel’s back!

Come morning and I felt rested but tentative knowing full well what is the trigger.  Lugging things.

Still, it was pretty outside as there had been a lot of snow fall, with some huge drifts too.

Impressive!

And I couldn’t get to my shed to finish my Christmas Lego either.

The horses and ponies all went out after their big breakfast and spent their day eating or asking to come back inside.  We ignored them.  Pepper buggered off to the neighbours *** sigh ***.

Meanwhile, I spent my day in bed, lying flat (no extra pillows) with my Painpod zapping away and a variety of visitors and did nothing, absolutely nothing.  Gosh, it was nice.  I just rested, played a few games on my iPad and listened to the radio.

We don’t have the heating on during the daytime so I was well wrapped up and under the covers keeping nice and warm.

And I had a hot water bottle on my lap, which confirmed that Monster was a heat-seeking missile in another life.

Anyway, a day in bed, getting up only to do the animals, has been lovely. I shall get up and cook supper later, do the last check of the big shed inhabitants and go back to bed to continue creeping through the Great Pyramid of Eygpt looking for clues……  so far I’ve only managed to leave my tent!

More Snow

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We’re bored of this now.  The constant gale force north wind brings a wind chill of around minus ten and then there are the blizzards and drifting.  There is more snow to come too.  Horrible.

But today everyone went outside for most of the daylight hours as it got steadily nastier.  We put rugs on the old horses and ponies as well as Tiddles.  After lunch, I found everyone huddling in and around the containers for shelter so I shouted and they all came running and quickly went inside.  These days no one mucks around.  No naughty little ponios now.

Having Flossie here has been a god-send too.  She is beyond helpful. I owe her so much for this.  Above and beyond any call of duty.  She is tireless – mucking out, lugging water, rugs on, rugs off.  All the heavy stuff while trying to preserve my back which is putting up huge complaints.  I am even considering epidural steroid injections again, so things must be bad.

There is more snow coming but as long as we have a good stock of food for the animals, we will manage.

I can’t see anyone getting out soon, though I might try and make a dash to town next week if I can.

And Pepper has a vet appointment on Monday – dodgy ears situation.  She is having treatment so it is really only a check-up.

Still, we have an excellent supply of hot chocolate and Christmas choccie, so we hoomans are doing pretty well.

I am currently writing this with a hot water bottle on my lap, hand-warmers and a heated back belt as well.

An observation:  There is no such thing as waterproof work gloves. They are all liars and mountebanks.

Blizzard

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After a good breakfast, Floss and I put everyone outside without their rugs because they are all:-

  • very floofy and fat
  • they can move around better, roll and play
  • and it wasn’t that bad, weather-wise.  The sun was shining.

So Iacs spent his valuable daylight hours by himself standing by the gate looking hopeful that I would return.

Everyone else was in the field digging and eating grass perfectly happily.

 

Iacs was now in a severe depression.  I thought it was because I hadn’t rugged him up.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was cold, but I thought they all have a good covering of fat and long fur and are built for this.

So obviously I gave in and opened the gate.

I don’t like anyone being miserable.

I gave Iacs a bucket of hay replacer, because it is easy to eat and I had it ready.  Iacs stuffed his fat floofy face not even coming up for air.  I also put his rug on.

Meanwhile Haakon and Kolka had spied that Iacs had vanished. You can almost feel the resentment from here.

And then everyone turned up to look resentful too.

Once finished, I shoved Iacs back out to rejoin all his friends hoping everyone would now be ok.

Not even two hours later, we had a huge blizzard. It was vile. So Flossie opened the big shed doors, and I opened the gate.  All the horses and ponies came in as fast as they could.

Even Fivla showed some speed.

So they have all gone to bed an hour or so early and are tucked up with food and water in their nice warm shed.  The hens and ducks also went to bed early and I haven’t seen any sheep.  When I go out again later, I think they should be home by then. I left their gate open and shouted a bit but honestly we couldn’t see to the fence as the blizzard was so bad.

All Together

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Happy smiley faces greeted us this morning, so we gave them their breakfast, put rugs on those that needed them, and threw everyone out together into a nearby field.  It would be easy to get them back inside later if they were close by and also together.

Kolka decided she wanted to be with the Shetland ponies, as did Vitamin and Fivla.  They were very pleased to see their friends again.

Iacs and Haakon grumbled off muttering something about not wanting to mix with the riff-raff but I knew there would be no arguing or fighting as really they all know each other very well.  There was something very nice seeing them all in a field together.  It seemed right.

I thought the sheep would all vote for a “Duvet Day”, but no, they ate their breakfast(s) and then the whole flock decided to go outside.

I didn’t say no. Fresh air, even with a “Real Feel” of minus 12, is good for everyone I am assured.

I left their field gate open so, if the weather got worse, they had a choice to go back to bed.  They did their own thing all day and I only saw them coming home again late afternoon.  All eight so no sleepless night.

And, just before it got dark, we opened up the shed and shouted.  Ten horses and ponies came inside.  Waffle was the only one who had an independent thought and refused to be caught, preferring to raid all the feed buckets first.  Little sod.  I cornered him on the trot, rugby tackled a headcollar on him and led him back to his better-behaved friends.  Knowing they are all tucked up for the night and not having to cope with this horrendous weather outside is a great comfort to me.

All Inside

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My morning was spent getting ready for the mother of all weathers.  According to the weather forecast, the temperature is going to dip hugely so I filled every container I could find with water for when the tap freezes, which it always does.

The stalls all have fresh water buckets, forage licks and haynets (except for Fivla and Vitamin’s – no hay eating teeth).

And Skippy is charged up, ready to go.

The sheep have haynets hanging, a lick bucket available and fresh water too. I even cleaned out their feed bowls just because.

Later on at 2.30 p.m., the weather started to disintegrate and I don’t mind telling you that no one needed asking twice when I opened the gates.

They all, to a horse/pony, rushed into their stalls, almost taking off their own rugs without rolling first and started to eat looking very relieved that they were not having to stay outside anymore.

So now I am going to spend my entire night lying awake thinking “thank the Gods everyone is inside tonight” while the weather rages around us.

But will I sleep?  Probably not, because Gussie and Dahlia are the only ones outside – I didn’t see them come home. I’ve wedged their field gate open just in case they remember.

update: they’re all home now. Phew!