Relative Something

Walking with Asher yesterday I spotted interesting shadows where the overnight snow didn’t land.

Do you think maybe it was a calm night? Yeah. Me too.

Later, coming out of the barn, I looked back at Cyndie and pointed out a bit of a shadow on her jacket from when she gave Mia a dose of medicine from a syringe.

No barn pigeons were involved, despite how it looks.

The full story starts from the night before when we were riled up over Mia’s pain and suffering. In Cyndie’s defense, she has only recently been getting back into outdoor activities and had no intention of spending more than a minute looking at the horses when Mia fell ill with that choke.

Cold, and walking painfully in her winter boot before her incisions have fully healed, Cyndie ended up making multiple treks back and forth between the house and barn. She came down with a syringe filled with a recommended dose of a pain med for Mia and suffered an epic failure to deliver.

Cyndie slid the syringe into Mia’s lips and pushed the plunger to deliver but the tip wasn’t in Mia’s mouth it was against her lip. The fluid of medicine sprayed straight back, covering Cyndie’s jacket, face, glasses, and hat. It was hard not to laugh but her frustrated cursing indicated it wouldn’t be considered laughable until much later.

The good news was that it helped Cyndie decide she had mixed the powder with too much water. She hiked back up to the house to prepare a fresh dose and ultimately delivered that batch like a pro who does this all the time.

Yesterday, Cyndie washed her jacket before heading down to help me with the afternoon feeding. Mia received most of this dose from the syringe but the fresh-out-of-the-dryer coat still took a hit.

I think that’s what a barn coat is supposed to look like, but we don’t always share the same standard.

Mia continues to improve. Yesterday morning we heard one occasion of just two coughs from her but by the afternoon we heard no coughing at all. She looked to be in good spirits and eating well.

We have the herd divided into two pairs: Swings with Mix and Light with Mia. After Monday night’s snowfall, I found evidence yesterday morning that Swings and Mix had walked all the way around through the hay field into the back pasture to approach the backside of the large paddock where Mia and Light were confined without food for the night.

The four of them were hanging out together on either side of the wooden paddock fence. Their hoof prints in the snow provided a shadow of their companionable activity from the night before.

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