Where'd THAT ol' Summer go?

Since I (with Jack and Julie's help) managed to patch things up enough to finish out the season, I've been too fascinated with freakin' Facebook to spend my writing time here on me blog. The sleigh sits on skids at the farm, thanks to a little help from Roger Bodger. She really needs paint and I'll have to switch out the front set of bunk and runners before I can paint all that up and slide it back under the box. Summer has officially come to a screeching halt here. I need to get ready for my Bloomington gig, too.

The text size and style seem to be freaking out on me. Maybe a WordPress blog would work better. What do you think about that, mister Blogger Cookie?

I also hate composing in this little tiny window that only takes up a quarter of the screen.

So I spent the whole summer roofing a little with the Lonnie-Blaster, and taking a lot of naps in the recliner. Never thought I'd have to be working on the roof again, but there ain't a whole lot more going on these days Hardly got any sawing done, but I did go get a couple of neat little LaCroix Indian pony-boys named Makwa and Eddie. I'll have to post some pictures which currently reside on my other computer. I never once went fishing, and only twice got out rowing.

Tonight I am proud to report significant progress on Mr. Dwyer's log bench, and a little maple cut up for firewood. Onward.

Who knows how long it will stay nice like this. No bugs, no rain, hot as it's been all damn summer.

Coconut's Colic Continues

So, where were we...traveling home after Coconut's IV froze up at ten below in the unheated barn in Esko. We headed out from there at about 11:00, it must have been. Midnight McDonald's and gas at Holiday, arriving at Man Elverhoy's heated garage around 1:30. We hooked up the IV to the catheter, and with somebody standing on either side of him so he wouldn't move around, we slowly dripped the two five-liter bags of Lactated Ringer's Solution into the jugular vein of the horse, all night long. The third bag had drained itself almost out onto the floor of the back seat of Jim's pickup when the needle fell down. But after we had done all this, at five AM, a little wet green biscuit fell on the floor. We were elated, we had what we were looking for. I went home for two hours of sleep, swung by the hospital for 3 liters of Ringer's, which is what they could spare, and one liter from Kim before I returned.

When I got there Solveig and Kari had been walking that horse around all day without any sleep, and we tried pumping that into him. A retired big animal vet who was up to go XC skiing stopped by twice, and assured us there was nothing else we could have done. Along about dark, we loaded him back in the trailer. He hadn't eaten or drank a thing. We took him home to Solveig and sister Kjersti's new place, where Gepetto his pasture-mate hollered to him. Coconut spoke back hoarsely. We took him to the water tank where he stuck his nose way under water for several seconds, but would not drink.

Solveig and I followed him around the yard there, and he laid down three or four times, groaned, and got up. The last time he laid down we knew he wasn't getting up. Before he went down he was coughing or blowing up brown fluid from his lungs, but he just laid down then, with his old horsey head in our laps and his breathing sped up and slowly faded. He died right there. I never have been with a horse when it died. We were both overcome. I sobbed like a little kid, passed around some tobacco I had, Solveig said, "Just think, Marco, I was with you when I met Coconut, and I was with you when he died." The sunshine girl speaks the truth.

Coconut Continues

I'm back from more-than-full-time sleigh rides and repairs--did ya miss me? (I'm chillin' at the coffee shop with a pair of reading glasses John was so kind as to loan me) That time ten years ago when Solveig and Ashley were out helling around by the sewer ponds at night, there was just enough snow to make it slippery, and one misstep sent horse and rider head over heel.

That night ten ears ago we were there in the barn at Lutsen, Jim, Kari, Me, Solveig, and Coconut with a bashed-in head, we called the vet in Cloquet and he sent us The Bute and Banamine he needed to reduce the pain and inflammation. We had laid some triple-antibiotic eye ointment and bandaged the eye with gauze and tape which had to be changed every day for a month, and pumped a bunch of Penicillin into him for a few days to keep it from getting infected.

It all went pretty well, considering how severe the trauma was, and we saved the eyeball, but he lost the sight in that eye from having that part of his skull caved in. The old piece of cloth taped to the section of his halter that covered the eye was a trick I had learned from our farrier friend Bruce Campbell which had saved a scratched eyeball on Jose', another of the "original Mexicans" who were the blue-collar bedrock of our saddle-string at the time. If you can get them some antibiotics, use some of that opthalmic ointment, and change the dressing every day, you can often save an eye that would otherwise be lost.

You should have seen how that eye was bugged-out and the whole fist-sized section of his skull was caved in, and how Coconut just was so tolerant and never fussed over all that treatment and pain, and how you never really bond with a horse like when you have to help them get better from something like that, and how they never really bond like that with you until they need you to help them, and they know it. It's all pretty hard and scary and rewarding if the outcome is positive. But my old buddy Byron the vet from Bigfork always says to me, she'll either live or she'll die and you can either help her or you can't.

It's hard to find a good old-school large-animal vet in rural Minnesota any more. We had a guy here for a couple of years who was great, just like Byron, there to help you do what you could do, and not charge you more than the horse was worth to do what you couldn't. Carl Wall, I sure miss him at times like this, with the colicky horse. Those folks are a treasure, not just there to skim the cream off of the dog and cat market, never being available even when your dog is poisoned on the weekend. It's rare to find a vet who'll give a "farmer" credit for knowing what he/she knows and being able to do what they can do for themselves. Here on the North Shore there are a lot more horses than you would think there would be, but I'm sure there are not enough for a large-animal vet to live on for sure. And now I still can't finish the shaggy-dog story yet 'cause Ray needs help with a sewer-pipe job...