Feeling victorious, Sunday morning I'm ready to seize the day. Watch me finish my bush hogging list today.
How plans can change. Adjanie and Cristian tag team barn chores on Sunday mornings. I get some dire news on Jack.
This is not looking good for the home team. I'd checked on all of them at 10:30 PM Saturday night when I'd stopped bush hogging. They were all fine. Now this.
Cristian and I take turns taking vitals. He's in severe colic mode and debilitating pain. He won't rise. He gets stuck in the fence thrashing while we work on him.
Meanwhile, we're trying to find an available ambulatory vet, ours is finally taking a well earned vacay. It is a long weekend and it appears every equine DVM has gotten out of Dodge. Sure, I can take him to the vet school. But, we can't get there if he doesn't get up!
Cristian, Adjanie and I run the gamut of usual ways to prompt a horse to get up. He's down, with his eyes closed. I pull my .45 out and shoot. It works, he jumps up and we stagger into the awaiting horse trailer 3 feet away. Sometimes, it pays to think outside of the box. Adjanie lined the floor of the trailer with 4 bags of shavings if he collapses again. Cristian had pumped Banamine via IV a few minutes earlier. I credit this for the reason he didn't crumple to the floor during the 45 minute drive to the vet school. I am definitely not qualified to give intravenous shots, poor Jack would've looked like a pin cushion.
He's now in good hands. I literally hand him over to a tech and retire back to the truck. Due to covid-19, no one is allowed in the vet school.
Two hours later, two tentative diagnoses emerge: a) ileal impaction or b) intestinal stragulation. Caveat: if it's b), he needs surgery or he dies, but if it's a), they generally don't respond well to surgical interventions. Waiting begins to see how he deteriorates, as to pinpoint marker symptoms and test results.
I'm back on the farm by mid afternoon, trying in vain to recoup my day. I'm fantasizing about a few hours of bush hogging before dusk. Mother Nature has other plans. My weather app alerts me to lightning coming up on my Southern flank. I run the horses back to the safety of the barn. This little guy at the back of the barn sends half of them running in the opposite direction.
Seriously. He flunked Camouflaging in school for sure.
Finally the horses are in.
Axel loafs around loose in the aisle, quietly standing outside of his best friend's stall. The bond between these two is incredible. Axel is basically blind in one eye now and his other eye isn't faring well. All the other horses in the main herd dislike him, they would love for Angus to take his eye off him, just for a minute. He doesn't. Axel rarely has a scratch on him.
Usually, I have to point Axel in Angus' direction when I cut them loose after feeding, lately, I've seen a transformation in Angus. He now waits for him, lets Axel gently bump into him, then they go off together.
The storms pass and the snake, patiently sitting in a pillowcase on my desk, gets relocated.
Garrett is the type who believes if you don't see a problem, it doesn't exist.
My barn swallows can breath a sigh of relief: their nests will be safe tonight.
Hey, maybe I can bush hog for 2 hours?!
Dream on, Sunshine.
Vet school calls. Change in diagnoses. Still a possible strangulation, but a new diagnosis seems more likely: acute enteritis. Who knows why his intestinal tract is so inflammed that it's not letting anything pass. I cruise the pastures regularly looking for any toxic plant mentioned in my book:
Then I remember that a week ago, a friend came over to bush hog the slopes behind the dams for me. Flynn is the only one who cut the big dam slope for the past 3 years, but it had been 4 years since a previous employee had attempted to roll the tractor down the backside of the smaller and steeper dam. This professional backhoe and equipment operator was able to open up a space that had been choked by 10' trees... and in the process, expose an under canopy of plants... right along the horses path to their daytime Back Pasture.
I check it out and find nothing toxic. I get home at 8 PM and decide to put my Wellies on and check it again. Jackpot:
Woodwardia areolata, netted chain fern. Growing in the spillway of the dam, previously shaded by dense shrubbery. And there's hoof prints in the middle of it all.
It's not listed in my book on toxic plants, but I find one reference to its toxicity online.
I text the vet back. I think we're onto something. Whether he can be saved or not, I don't know. She's checking to see if his test results match the syndrome caused by these ferns.
So, I wait.
I plan to eat myself out of sadness with today's garden harvest. First up, fresh pesto pasta
Then two blackberry cobblers.
I'm sure in some cultures it's normal to have supper at 11 PM, not sure which, but they're out there.
