HAY!

Finally - after a month of rain, we got 2 days of dry weather and my hay supplier was able to cut. So yesterday and today JD and I made repeated trips with his pickup to start filling the hayloft for the coming year. Right now we've got 135 bales of first cut, and 50 bales of second cut, because there was one field he was able to cut over a month ago that regrew. The second cut is awesome! The first cut is as would be expected for mature hay. It's got some stalky stuff in it, but also some of the mid-summer grass hay that had grown into it. But the best part is that it is clean hay, no undesirable stuff or weeds in it. We just need to get about 115 more bales to have our year's worth. I'm going to wait for the second cut for that.

Tonight it feels like October. It's cool and the sky has those fall-looking clouds. We still haven't had much summer weather yet. I hear that places like Texas have triple digit temperatures, which is hard to imagine right now. The farrier comes tomorrow morning, so at least it will be comfortable for him to work. I'm going to put front shoes on Sailor, so we can start working her more with the idea of riding her.

My mom continues to do amazing well on her new med. She is back to where she was over a year ago. And I think the memory medicine "nemeda" has worked to help her cognition. She is astoundingly sharp for someone who could not even converse a couple of months ago. I just hope this continues. That's all for now - got to go out and throw the horses a little bit of night time hay.

Happy 4th!

Fourth of July for me meant doing some work around the house, some gardening and barn cleaning. In the evening though, we went out for dinner, something we haven't done in a long time. We went to one of our favorite places, located in Pawlet, VT, called The Barn. It's a 100 year old barn that has been turned into a restaurant, and still is very much a barn inside. It was a nice dinner and a nice time.

Today the sun came out! Maybe because it has been raining non-stop for a month, but the sky seemed more blue than I'd seen it in some time. I couldn't stop staring at the wonder of it. I did something I haven't been able to do yet this year: sit out on my deck and soak up a few rays. It's hard to believe we haven't had a decent day until July 5. In celebration of the nice weather, and so I could say we did something on this holiday weekend, JD and I went to a lakeside party at a restaurant on a local lake (Glen Lake). This place used to be our hangout when we lived in Queensbury, so we know the owner well. She had booked a band, which played on the lawn by the lake. We ran into tons of people we hadn't seen in a long time, and my son Craig even joined us for a while. It was a relaxing way to spend the afternoon, and I think JD enjoyed it after working long hours on the Minne-Ha-Ha on Thursday and Friday.

So no horse time this weekend, but maybe tomorrow I will be able to work Sailor. She responded well to our work last week, so it's important to continue. It would be a huge accomplishment for me to be riding her again sometime soon.

I rode today!

Finally, after many months (last September I think), I rode. My fear had built to the point where I didn't think I could get on a horse at all, even Noble. But I did. My neighbor Yvonne came over, and worked Sailor for quite a while. Sailor apparently thought her life's mission was to lounge around and graze all day, so she wasn't with the program at first, But eventually, she decided it was easier to do what the trainer wanted, instead of fighting it or ignoring her. After she was worked and bathed, Yvonne's husband Kevin did some light ground work with Noble, who was much better than Sailor. She knows what to do, and knows it's much easier to just do the right thing and be done with it. Then I rode her in the arena for a bit. We walked and trotted, even a little pattern. I only got nervous when Noble suddenly put her head down, and I had visions of Sailor doing that last summer just before I was launched. But she was just trying to get rid of a deer fly on her nose. I actually had to work a bit to keep her in the trot, because she was a little tired from her ground work. As frustrating as that is, it's better than trying to hang on when I horse is running away with you, as Yvonne pointed out. The main thing is I rode, even if it was old Noble, and I gained a wee bit of confidence. We'll do it again tomorrow, if the rain holds off.

On the mom front, my mother is doing much better on her new medication. She is happy, in a good mood whenever I visit. She's quite coherent, even if she doesn't always get reality correct. She's so good, she really could go back to assisted living, but unfortunately her money is tied up legally with the whole nursing home thing, and it will be gone within a few months. So I'm afraid she is a nursing home patient forever. If only one of the many places she has been in had known about this med, she might not have ended up in a dementia ward for the most extreme cases. But I'm not going to get going on that now.

In other animal news, we almost lost my cat Lacey this week. On Wednesday evening it became apparent she wasn't well. She didn't eat, just laid there and slept. So on Thursday morning I took her to the vet and left her there for the day so they could evaluate her. She had a fever of 104.8, and they gave her an IV, antibiotics, and a NSAID to try and bring it down. Friday morning her temp was still 104.2. So she stayed another day, while they tried to get her better. Her right eye was swollen shut, and they had to remove a small piece of grass from under her third eyelid. We'll never know if she was sick from an eye infection, or if it was a virus. But it didn't look good for a while. But on Saturday morning her temp was normal, and I was able to bring her home. She's still on an antibiotic and has to stay in for a week. She's feeling so much better though, that she follows me around the house yelling at me because I won't let her out. It's annoying, but I'm just happy that she is well again.

Rolling!

Noble in the middle of a good roll.

Just an update

I have been so neglectful of this blog. It looks like my life might calm down a bit because my mom is now in a nursing home in Bennington, Vermont. It's hard to visit, because she is in a dementia unit with people who are the worst of cases. When I saw her last week, she was very out of it, but still begged me to take her home. It really is heartbreaking to have to leave your mother in this situation. The staff is very caring, but it is institutional there. They have her on a new medication, that my brother feels has helped her awareness. We'll see how it goes.

Meanwhile, I have been working on a freelance writing job for a local school district's newsletter that is occupying all my free time. The poor horses don't see much of me, between two jobs and visiting my mom. I'm hoping to make time for them in the near future. I really need to get back on a horse for my own confidence, which took a serious hit last summer when Sailor threw me for the second time. It's awful, after 12 years of riding 3-4 times/week, to suddenly be totally afraid to get on even old Noble. And I hate myself for it. There's a new equine facility that opened near me that offers lessons, and I'm thinking of taking a lesson or two on a school horse just to get my confidence back. It's really crazy to take care of two horses that I don't ride.

Work at the bookstore keeps me very occupied. We have 17 author events in June, which is a lot considering I am a one-person department - and I work part-time. Fortunately July is shaping up to have only 11 events, which is much more manageable for me. Our big "star" author is Michael Lang, the creator/producer of the original Woodstock Festival in 1969. He has a book coming out called The Road to Woodstock, and it's fascinating reading. You get all the dirt on what went on behind the scenes. I worked in the press tent at the 1994 Woodstock Festival, and bumped into Michael Lang, but never officially met him. So this should be interesting. He's sort of an enigmatic person, so we'll see how open he is in person. Anybody near Manchester, Vermont on July 25, come on over and meet him and relive the old hippie days!

Horse stuff

Sailor looks at me over her shoulder.

Noble stares through the fence.

No change

Wish I had better news to report. My mother continues to decline. She is still in the hospital, awaiting nursing home placement. I was told today by an elder care manager that the only places that will take someon as severe as she is are in Massachusetts. The one place that has said they can take her is in Pittsfield, MA, about 1 1/2 hr. from me. But they do not have a bed for her. I cannot bear to see her suffer like this. If she is awake, she is agitated and fearful. Now she has started crying unconsolably for no reason. Because the insurance company is still refusing to pay the hospital, they don't seem motivated to try and help her. The have a geriatric psychiatry unit (where she should be) but they won't move her there. We changed her insurance to a better plan, but that doesn't take effect until June 1. It's hard enough to see your mom suffer like this, but having a bureaucracy working against you makes it even worse. My brother and I are emotionally and psychologically exhausted. It's like the past 2 months have been one long emergency that never ends. It's getting hard to go on (and really hard to stay focused at work), but we don't have any choice.