Monster went away first thing to the vet (again) for his dental procedure and the house instantly felt very odd without him.  I didn’t like it.

So, I decided that I didn’t want to be at home and took the horsevan to town to buy a round bale of hay and a few other things.  That took all morning.

I definitely know that Ted and Pepper missed Monster very much.  I mean, who is going to tell them what to do and where to go (and yes Ted’s right eye is not very good – he had just had his treatment for dry eye which is now three times a day).

So later, while OH was fetching Monster home after his surgical ordeal, I did my afternoon/evening chores…..

…. while constanty looking at the road in the distance for OH’s car headlights.  I needed to know Monster was coming home.

And he’s is just home now and seems ok.  He instantly said he was hungry so I gave him something to eat and he is much happier.

And now everyone else can breathe a sigh of relief too.

I’ve taken off the leg bandage and am delighted to say that Monster has put on 0.3kg in a week!  That’s my boy and the antibiotics are finished, so that’s another ordeal over and done with too.

“We will be restoring normality just as soon as we are sure what is normal anyway.” – D. Adams

After a two day awol, Gussie and Dahlia appeared for breakfast.  The reason for their absenteeism was that I had drenched/wormed and multi vitamin’ed them, much to their disgust.

Anyway, food called Gussie and Dahlia, his mother, obviously had to follow.  I noticed she didn’t say no to her breakfast bowl.

Gus-Gus is very keen on his food and is becoming more independent too.  Dahlia is the one following him now.

Feeling rather bad about the fluke/worming saga, I sat down on a cold rock to talk to anyone who wanted to chat.

Gussie came up and Pepper was instantly jealous and jumped onto my knee.

Dahlia left us to it.

I apologised for the shock of it all (worming is never fun) and explained it was for their own good.

Pepper and Gussie have not forgotten their friendship.  Gussie has never been nasty to Pepper, though Dahlia still has her doubts about this ginger non-sheep.  Ted sensibly stays well away.

I am glad we are all friends again. I was surprised for how long the grudge went on for – two whole days, which is long for a sheep (ask Lambie, who is our expert sulker!)

Pepper never sulks. She just makes everyone apologise to her for whatever awful crime she has committed.

Don’t you, Pepper!

Monster has not had a good day. He was driven to the vet first thing, having been starved since midnight, to have his scheduled dental procedure.

But, it didn’t happen (an emergency took precedence) so OH brought Monster home 7 hours later a wee bit disgruntled. Luckily he has rallied after large supper and lots of attention.

The Old Ladies spent their afternoon around the house eating the better grass.

And I have a new hobby – constructing a mini brick Bonsai Sakura tree that I was given for Christmas.

The tree has taken me three afternoons to complete .  Total relaxation just following instructions and thinking about absolutely nothing. I needed this.  I didn’t realise I did until I was totally absorbed building my tree.  I am feeling very accomplished.

I will go back to making my sheep soon.  I just needed a complete break.

After tree building, I went outside to find the Old Ladies looking for me.

I only had to shout “Fivla, Vitamin” and they were there.

Vitamin was even trotting towards me as she knew I would let her go to bed and obviously buckets of food would follow.

An old lady on a mission.  Vitamin would be the one who got the seat on the bus, no matter what.

(I am feeling very relaxed and with a glass of wine so I am now looking for more mini-bricks trees to build!)

I drove the horsevan to town first thing this morning to get the new supply of feed for Tiddles while trying, and succeeding, from not buying something else which might have added sugar or alfalfa.  Finding the list of ingredients on the back of a 20kg sack is not an easy task. But succeed I did.  I stuck to  my list and I am feeling immensely proud of this ridiculously small achievement.

I then went and bought a tonne of builder’s sand and drove carefully and steadily home.  The van felt very heavy.

Lunch, and it was peeing down outside and everyone looked wet and miserable.

So I let the Old Ladies inside while OH and I were working.

We had to redistribute the sand to freshen up the stalls which were very “tired”.

Once we had moved half the tonne into the stalls with the help of Skippy (a ruddy godsend), the Old Ladies said they were bored of watching us work.  I let them out in the pouring rain to graze.  They were perfectly happy with that arrangement.

This is the view from my shed.  I am wet and sandy now but glad the stalls are a bit nicer now.

While I was busy tidying up my feed shed, trying to make some order to all the stuff I have in it, I had some visitors.

Vitamoobag brought her friend, Fivla, to see if there were any freebies.

I said no, sorry, please go away.

And then instantly felt guilty for being so mean and gave them a small bucket of hay replacer so I could drive the car in and unload it, without them both trying to escape.  It has happened before.

I wanted my shed to be easier to work in because I am changing everything.  Less is more is my new motto.  I am a feeder. I like to feed animals but this has to stop.  Tiddles’ glucose levels from his last blood test were off the charts and Waffle’s only slightly better. This is not good and it has to change.  The vet said to stop everything as something was obviously contributing to Tiddles’ ridiculously high glucose levels.

So I spent my morning making a list of what Tiddles actually eats and looked at the ingredients. I was shocked.  Every single thing had alfalfa (a known glucouse spike for Insulin Resistant ponies) and even molasses, despite being labelled as low sugar and acceptable for ponies prone or with laminitis.  So no more.  All sugar is out of everyone’s diets and maybe, just maybe, we can get on top of this.   They get zero chaff and a tiny measure of unmolassed beet.

And I am weighing everything for the Shetland ponies.  Everything.  Plus all hay will be soaked.

The old ladies are exempt from this regime, much to their relief.

But I just have to sort this out before the spring grass arrives.  I feel awful that I have got it so wrong for Tiddles all this time when I thought I was doing the right thing.