I am rewriting that damn seminar paper. (The role of courts of equity today in Tennessee - did you know the Chancellor can totally give punitive damages? Pretty trippy, if you understand those terms at all, and if you don't understand them you really don't want to.)
Anyway, it is obvious that I am rewriting that damn paper, because the clothes are all washed, the floor is vaccuumed, the catbox is clean, I made my wrist hurt from playing too much computer jigsaw, and I'm contemplating sewing up a hole in a sock. I am also completely caught up on any blogs that interest me. So this is a plea to the internet - please, someone, post something. Otherwise I will have to go back to reading cases with lines like this: "The cause was heard by the Chancellor on the original bill, as amended, the answer of the defendant, and exhibits, on a motion of the defendant to dissolve the injunction. The Chancellor sustained the motion, dissolved the injunction and dismissed the bill."
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Monday, April 28, 2008
Housekeeping
De-fleaed the house pets today. Capstar all around, then Advantage Multi on the cats and
Promeris on the dog. Since the Advantage kills heartworm larvae too and I try to keep everybody on the same schedule, I went ahead and gave Cersei her heartworm pill too.
The damn fleas came from the damn (poor deceased) kittens. Grumble. I tried Frontline on everybody last week but these are those horrid Frontline-resistant fleas.
Promeris on the dog. Since the Advantage kills heartworm larvae too and I try to keep everybody on the same schedule, I went ahead and gave Cersei her heartworm pill too.
The damn fleas came from the damn (poor deceased) kittens. Grumble. I tried Frontline on everybody last week but these are those horrid Frontline-resistant fleas.
The end is in sight!
Ok, I've taken three finals and I have one more, plus a paper to edit and turn in, and then I'll be DONE FOREVER with law school. (Unless I failed a class and have to take summer school, oh god please no pleasepleaseplease...)
I'm aiming to get my paper finished and emailed in tomorrow. Then Wednesday I'll learn Family Law, Thursday I take the last exam, Friday I move the horses and Graham comes to town, and Sunday I graduate. The funny thing? I'm really not looking forward to moving the horses. I'm going to miss them. Going to feed has been the one constant in my life for almost two years. They'll be having the times of their lives, in a lovely pasture full of grass. They aren't really far away, as these things go - an hour isn't a big deal. But it's not something I can do every day.
And they're all going to Como. Today Jody told me (in front of witnesses!) that I can take Quinn with the others. I almost cried, I was so shocked and overjoyed. I still owe money on her and I didn't think Jody would want me taking her to another state... but she's gonna let me. I'm giving the papers (which aren't in my name yet anyway) back along with a signed agreement, and I get to take her!
It's definitely best for the horse. I was so sad about having to leave Quinn in Memphis, because she's just now really becoming part of the herd. If she stayed in Memphis, she'd be on the outside of Jen's herd for a couple of months, then have to leave them and come back to me and learn to get along with my hateful bunch again.
Surely tomorrow I'll remember to take pics. Quinn's bay flank spots are like 50% roan - she's a gorgeous mare. And Poppy's big and black, Champ's fugly, and Silky is old but elegant.
I took Fugly and Cersei for a short ride today. The horses are fighting off a nasty upper respiratory thing that's ripping through the barn, so I didn't go far or fast. Mainly we'd wander 50 yards, then graze, then wander, then graze. I let Champ canter on the way back, just a bit, just because cantering on a sunny day in a green field is like flying.
I'm aiming to get my paper finished and emailed in tomorrow. Then Wednesday I'll learn Family Law, Thursday I take the last exam, Friday I move the horses and Graham comes to town, and Sunday I graduate. The funny thing? I'm really not looking forward to moving the horses. I'm going to miss them. Going to feed has been the one constant in my life for almost two years. They'll be having the times of their lives, in a lovely pasture full of grass. They aren't really far away, as these things go - an hour isn't a big deal. But it's not something I can do every day.
And they're all going to Como. Today Jody told me (in front of witnesses!) that I can take Quinn with the others. I almost cried, I was so shocked and overjoyed. I still owe money on her and I didn't think Jody would want me taking her to another state... but she's gonna let me. I'm giving the papers (which aren't in my name yet anyway) back along with a signed agreement, and I get to take her!
It's definitely best for the horse. I was so sad about having to leave Quinn in Memphis, because she's just now really becoming part of the herd. If she stayed in Memphis, she'd be on the outside of Jen's herd for a couple of months, then have to leave them and come back to me and learn to get along with my hateful bunch again.
Surely tomorrow I'll remember to take pics. Quinn's bay flank spots are like 50% roan - she's a gorgeous mare. And Poppy's big and black, Champ's fugly, and Silky is old but elegant.
I took Fugly and Cersei for a short ride today. The horses are fighting off a nasty upper respiratory thing that's ripping through the barn, so I didn't go far or fast. Mainly we'd wander 50 yards, then graze, then wander, then graze. I let Champ canter on the way back, just a bit, just because cantering on a sunny day in a green field is like flying.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Oh, sweet internet, how I missed you!
Yep, it took the Apple store a *week* to fix my computer. I'm not mad at them - they were shorthanded - but I sure did miss the internet. With no TV and no books (the books are in storage, and the computer doubles as a TV), it was a very long week. I mean, I needed to study - and I did - but there wasn't anything to do in that winding-down period at night.
The kittens died sometime Wednesday night. I'd been giving them antibiotics, and it really looked like they were starting to improve. They were actually playing a little before I went to sleep that night! But they must've crashed that night because they were dead in the morning.
They were really sick. And really small for their age. I keep thinking if I'd taken them sooner they might have made it. But I didn't really want to pull them off their mom and hand-raise them. I keep telling myself that I can't save them all.
In less morbid news, I've arranged to have Champ, Silky, and Poppy hauled down to Como on the 1st. I don't want to pay a dime more in stall rent than I have to. I can't take Quinn til I finish paying for her, but hopefully she'll only have to stay in Frayser for another month. Jen is going to take care of her for me.
The new (crazy) barn owner decided Sunday that Cersei can't come to the barn off-leash anymore, so I'm just not taking her to the barn anymore. It really sucks that she can't play with Sam and burn off all that energy, but it would suck worse to bring her out there and tell her she couldn't play with him.
Wanda's Belgian keeps beating up the other horses in the big pasture. Somebody, presumably him, cornered Jen's 2 year old TWH and beat the snot out of her. Wanda was told that she couldn't turn the Belgian out with the other horses anymore. Today she told Jen that one of the kids told her that it was actually Poppy and Champ who beat up the little TWH - through the fence, magically. Maybe they did, I don't actually know. I doubt it.
All I know is that I'm counting the days til I can leave that place behind.
Sorry for the grim post! I'm off to watch the new Dr. Who episode.
The kittens died sometime Wednesday night. I'd been giving them antibiotics, and it really looked like they were starting to improve. They were actually playing a little before I went to sleep that night! But they must've crashed that night because they were dead in the morning.
They were really sick. And really small for their age. I keep thinking if I'd taken them sooner they might have made it. But I didn't really want to pull them off their mom and hand-raise them. I keep telling myself that I can't save them all.
In less morbid news, I've arranged to have Champ, Silky, and Poppy hauled down to Como on the 1st. I don't want to pay a dime more in stall rent than I have to. I can't take Quinn til I finish paying for her, but hopefully she'll only have to stay in Frayser for another month. Jen is going to take care of her for me.
The new (crazy) barn owner decided Sunday that Cersei can't come to the barn off-leash anymore, so I'm just not taking her to the barn anymore. It really sucks that she can't play with Sam and burn off all that energy, but it would suck worse to bring her out there and tell her she couldn't play with him.
Wanda's Belgian keeps beating up the other horses in the big pasture. Somebody, presumably him, cornered Jen's 2 year old TWH and beat the snot out of her. Wanda was told that she couldn't turn the Belgian out with the other horses anymore. Today she told Jen that one of the kids told her that it was actually Poppy and Champ who beat up the little TWH - through the fence, magically. Maybe they did, I don't actually know. I doubt it.
All I know is that I'm counting the days til I can leave that place behind.
Sorry for the grim post! I'm off to watch the new Dr. Who episode.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Monthly update
Sunday I thought perhaps there was a flea on me. Oh god, do I hate fleas. So yesterday I gave Cersei her heartguard, plus flea treatment. (The kind in the tube that goes between her shoulder blades; I forget the brand.) And I gave Curtis the last tube of cat flea treatment - apparently I only had one left! But hopefully any fleas on Jerome will go exploring to Curtis or Cersei and die a horrible death.
Also I'm a sucker and I had to rescue two kittens. One of the young black cats at the barn had three kittens last month - a grey, a grey-and-white, and a black. They were hanging in there pretty well - small, with raging URIs, but stubbornly alive. All the women at the barn took turns taking them into the roundhouse, cleaning them up, feeding them a little wet food, and taking them back out to momma. But yesterday the grey died. I think he succumbed to the URI - he was just dead in the hall, no obvious trauma. So I took the two survivors home. They're just fighting so hard to stay alive, and I can't just watch them die. Momma is very very thin and I don't think she's got any milk left for them, and they're too small to scrap for cheap dry food with the rest of the big ones.
They are possibly FeLV+ so they're in quarantine. In a dog crate, actually - it's usually Cersei's toy box. Every day I go pick up all the toys and chewies and throw them in the crate, then vacuum, and Cersei goes in and picks out which toys she wants to play with. Well, I evicted the toys, laid down a towel, a sweatshirt for snuggling in, a piepan of litter, and a little dish of dry food soaked in water. I've got some antibiotics left from when Curtis was sick so I'm dosing each kitten with 1/4 of a Curtis-sized dose.
Nobody has the money to take them to the vet. Nobody actually even wants them, but... they're fighters. They want to live. I'm just trying to give them a shot. If they make it - and I'm more hopeful today than I was last night - I'll see if the AC lady will speuter them and take them to my uncle's barn in Como. They'll catch some of his mice and he'll feed them, and it's not a great life but it's better than what they've got now.
I don't know how old they are. Their eyes opened about 7-10 days ago. They've got canines and their incisors are trying to come through. But they're TINY - I can hold both in one hand. They've figured out how to eat, and they're figuring out how to use the bathroom.
Last night they ate a bit then squalled til I took them out of the crate and stuck them on my lap under a blanket, then they slept under that blanket all night. I wasn't sure if they'd make it overnight, but this morning they seemed perkier. They were eating when I left.
Curtis and Jerome are reacting pretty well. Curtis is kinda "what the fuck" and Jerome is just fascinated. Neither is poofy-tail howling, so that's good.
After I handle the kittens, I wash my hands. And empty dishes that come out of their crate
go straight into the dishwasher. C & J have had all their shots, including the FeLV vaccine, so I think the risk to my cats is low. The vaccine's not 100% but if I keep up the precautions I'm taking right now, it should work out.
Also my laptop is in the shop :( My Macbook Pro had a fan start to die so I took it in to the Mac Store. The extended warranty just paid for itself - it's major surgery to replace the fan. But they're getting me a new keyboard too - I'll have a left arrow key again, YAY! 48-72 hours before I get my laptop back :(
Also I'm a sucker and I had to rescue two kittens. One of the young black cats at the barn had three kittens last month - a grey, a grey-and-white, and a black. They were hanging in there pretty well - small, with raging URIs, but stubbornly alive. All the women at the barn took turns taking them into the roundhouse, cleaning them up, feeding them a little wet food, and taking them back out to momma. But yesterday the grey died. I think he succumbed to the URI - he was just dead in the hall, no obvious trauma. So I took the two survivors home. They're just fighting so hard to stay alive, and I can't just watch them die. Momma is very very thin and I don't think she's got any milk left for them, and they're too small to scrap for cheap dry food with the rest of the big ones.
They are possibly FeLV+ so they're in quarantine. In a dog crate, actually - it's usually Cersei's toy box. Every day I go pick up all the toys and chewies and throw them in the crate, then vacuum, and Cersei goes in and picks out which toys she wants to play with. Well, I evicted the toys, laid down a towel, a sweatshirt for snuggling in, a piepan of litter, and a little dish of dry food soaked in water. I've got some antibiotics left from when Curtis was sick so I'm dosing each kitten with 1/4 of a Curtis-sized dose.
Nobody has the money to take them to the vet. Nobody actually even wants them, but... they're fighters. They want to live. I'm just trying to give them a shot. If they make it - and I'm more hopeful today than I was last night - I'll see if the AC lady will speuter them and take them to my uncle's barn in Como. They'll catch some of his mice and he'll feed them, and it's not a great life but it's better than what they've got now.
I don't know how old they are. Their eyes opened about 7-10 days ago. They've got canines and their incisors are trying to come through. But they're TINY - I can hold both in one hand. They've figured out how to eat, and they're figuring out how to use the bathroom.
Last night they ate a bit then squalled til I took them out of the crate and stuck them on my lap under a blanket, then they slept under that blanket all night. I wasn't sure if they'd make it overnight, but this morning they seemed perkier. They were eating when I left.
Curtis and Jerome are reacting pretty well. Curtis is kinda "what the fuck" and Jerome is just fascinated. Neither is poofy-tail howling, so that's good.
After I handle the kittens, I wash my hands. And empty dishes that come out of their crate
go straight into the dishwasher. C & J have had all their shots, including the FeLV vaccine, so I think the risk to my cats is low. The vaccine's not 100% but if I keep up the precautions I'm taking right now, it should work out.
Also my laptop is in the shop :( My Macbook Pro had a fan start to die so I took it in to the Mac Store. The extended warranty just paid for itself - it's major surgery to replace the fan. But they're getting me a new keyboard too - I'll have a left arrow key again, YAY! 48-72 hours before I get my laptop back :(
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Horsie heaven and FHOTD fodder
Heaven:
Went down this morning to see my uncle's place in Como. He is giving my three horses a 40 acre field, with plenty of good grass, some trees, a cow pond, and good cow fencing. They are going to horse heaven. I made that high pitched girlie "squeeee" noise most of the way back to Memphis.
FHOTD:
I was sitting in the roundhouse this afternoon with a buncha fellow boarders, talking about pets. (One of the barn cats just had kittens; cute little buggers but I hope the AC lady gets the other cats fixed soon.) One of the other boarders said:
"At one time I had 29 cats and 19 dogs in the house."
We all kinda boggled at her.
"The damn things just kept breeding!"
Went down this morning to see my uncle's place in Como. He is giving my three horses a 40 acre field, with plenty of good grass, some trees, a cow pond, and good cow fencing. They are going to horse heaven. I made that high pitched girlie "squeeee" noise most of the way back to Memphis.
FHOTD:
I was sitting in the roundhouse this afternoon with a buncha fellow boarders, talking about pets. (One of the barn cats just had kittens; cute little buggers but I hope the AC lady gets the other cats fixed soon.) One of the other boarders said:
"At one time I had 29 cats and 19 dogs in the house."
We all kinda boggled at her.
"The damn things just kept breeding!"
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Champ the playa
When I went out to hay my guys this afternoon, I gave everybody the once-over eyeballing. I noticed Quinn had some weird dirt ruffles on her flanks - she's a mostly white horse with a thick underlayment of dust, so anything that disurbs her fur leaves dirt marks on her. I petted her briefly to make sure she wasn't cut or bruised, then went back to putting out hay. Dumped everybody's hay, played with Cersei for a while, and as I went to leave I noticed Champ had white fuzz stuck to the insides of his front legs. I looked at the white fur and realized in about two seconds that he'd been hittin' it with Quinn.
I've always suspected that he's proud-cut because he is so possessive of Silky. He gets really agitated if I take her away from him for any reason, pacing the fence and hollering, and when I put her back out with him he runs up and smells her all over, like he's making sure she wasn't out dallying with another stud.
Honestly, I suspect that most geldings are, to some extent, proud cut. In the spring when the mares come into season really strongly, lots of otherwise "normal" geldings are seen gettin' it on. I think the mares tease the normally uninterested geldings into givin them a little lovin. And really, as long as Champ isn't making a spectacle of himself or mounting other people's mares, that's fine with me.
I didn't get to do anything fun with the horses today. Thursday Cersei chewed through the stereo wiring in my truck - she ate the ipod cable and the speaker cable for the subwoofer. Last year when I installed the stereo, I'd meant to hide those cables under the floorboard somehow but I never got around to it. Sigh. Well, today I got to solder all the wires together and hide them under the floorboard like I should've done orginally. The subwoofer wire wasn't hard, just two strands of twisted copper and one separate ground wire. The ipod cable - ugh. One thick black cable with an inner sheathing of woven wire, a layer of paper insulation, and 12 separate very small colored wires. Two of the small wires were actually double wires.
I got all the inner wires soldered and wrapped and plugged it in for a test-drive, and the ipod would play for 20-30 seconds at a time and then the display would say "error-1" and quit. If I unplugged it and plugged it back in, it'd play.
Got mad and went to a local car stereo place to buy a new cable. The (really nice!) owner said he didn't deal in Alpine, but he could probably order one. Then he unwrapped a few of my soldered wires and checked them. He said I did a good job (yaaa!). He thought about it for a minute, then suggested that the woven wire sheathing might actually be the ground wire - try running a separate ground connected to the sheathing. He gave me a length of wire and off I went.
More soldering, more wrapping, and one more test - and it worked! It's as good as new - I can play, pause, skip tracks, skip playlists, everything! I'm so very happy. I fixed something, all by myself, and I did it right.
I cut a slit in the floorboard cover and ran the wires under it, too. I haven't figured out how I'm going to close the slit. Probably duct tape, ghetto as that will look.
I've always suspected that he's proud-cut because he is so possessive of Silky. He gets really agitated if I take her away from him for any reason, pacing the fence and hollering, and when I put her back out with him he runs up and smells her all over, like he's making sure she wasn't out dallying with another stud.
Honestly, I suspect that most geldings are, to some extent, proud cut. In the spring when the mares come into season really strongly, lots of otherwise "normal" geldings are seen gettin' it on. I think the mares tease the normally uninterested geldings into givin them a little lovin. And really, as long as Champ isn't making a spectacle of himself or mounting other people's mares, that's fine with me.
I didn't get to do anything fun with the horses today. Thursday Cersei chewed through the stereo wiring in my truck - she ate the ipod cable and the speaker cable for the subwoofer. Last year when I installed the stereo, I'd meant to hide those cables under the floorboard somehow but I never got around to it. Sigh. Well, today I got to solder all the wires together and hide them under the floorboard like I should've done orginally. The subwoofer wire wasn't hard, just two strands of twisted copper and one separate ground wire. The ipod cable - ugh. One thick black cable with an inner sheathing of woven wire, a layer of paper insulation, and 12 separate very small colored wires. Two of the small wires were actually double wires.
I got all the inner wires soldered and wrapped and plugged it in for a test-drive, and the ipod would play for 20-30 seconds at a time and then the display would say "error-1" and quit. If I unplugged it and plugged it back in, it'd play.
Got mad and went to a local car stereo place to buy a new cable. The (really nice!) owner said he didn't deal in Alpine, but he could probably order one. Then he unwrapped a few of my soldered wires and checked them. He said I did a good job (yaaa!). He thought about it for a minute, then suggested that the woven wire sheathing might actually be the ground wire - try running a separate ground connected to the sheathing. He gave me a length of wire and off I went.
More soldering, more wrapping, and one more test - and it worked! It's as good as new - I can play, pause, skip tracks, skip playlists, everything! I'm so very happy. I fixed something, all by myself, and I did it right.
I cut a slit in the floorboard cover and ran the wires under it, too. I haven't figured out how I'm going to close the slit. Probably duct tape, ghetto as that will look.
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