Posts Tagged ‘Perceptions’
‘Nother Day
It’s a gorgeous Saturday morning here on the ranch, with snowflakes flying and a fire dancing in the fireplace. Wish you could be here to take it all in with me, but since you are not, I’ll try to enjoy it enough for all of us.
I’m afraid Hunter is going to see this as another day of imprisonment. Despite our belief in an equine sense of the world that is heightened beyond our perceptions, I all too often fall back into a common thinking that we are outsmarting him.
The doctor’s orders are for full-time confinement in the stall with extra bedding for at least a week, plus daily doses of an anti-inflammatory. Whether or not Hunter recognizes our efforts are aimed at relieving his pain, he is not accepting the regiment willingly.
The way Cyndie describes the relative futility of injecting medicine into the mouth of a horse who doesn’t want it reminds me of raising kids. However, there is a big difference between imposing your will on a helpless little baby and a 1000-pound horse.
Watching Hunter battle his forced confinement by biting on the top board of his stall that is just barely out of reach for him breaks my heart when comparing this option to the acres of rolling open fields he is longing to gaze upon.
Our exercise becomes one of searching out a flavoring agent that might loosen his clenched teeth when medicine is delivered, and testing all manner of gimmicks for him to “play” with that will pass his time within the four walls.
We bought a two-burner heat fixture that is mounted atop a small propane tank in hopes of throwing a little heat into the barn during the veterinarian’s visit. Only one of the burners worked. The valve on the second one wouldn’t feed gas unless the starting button was held in.
The instructions said to hold it for 30 seconds. I tried, 3o, 40, a minute, two minutes. Yeah, I’m that patient.
No, it wouldn’t work.
At least the below zero cold is on hold for the days this week, and we are at a balmy 15°(F) with all this snow flying today.
We don’t need no stinkin’ heater.
Luckily, Hunter has received a room upgrade at the inn. Due to a recent vacancy, he has moved from a stall with no window to one on a corner that has two windows.
Here’s hoping he is enjoying the view of the current snow-globe landscape and not wasting his energy gnawing on the top board.
Send our sorry pal your love!
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Sad Face
We are still waiting for significant signs of improvement in Delilah, but whatever is causing her sharp pain –even though she is simply lying on the floor or in her crate overnight– it appears to be more intense than the drugs she is on.
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Since Cyndie is trained to administer Tellington TTouch, she is offering Delilah more than just the pain killers prescribed by the vet, but our poor dog still finds ways to move that triggers involuntary vocal response of acute discomfort.
That is so too familiar to me and my degenerating discs. We have inquired with the vet about a local dog chiropractor and I’ve been wondering if Delilah would tolerate accupuncture. It helped to ease my discomfort.
There have been a couple of encouraging glimpses of Delilah’s old self appearing, but thus far they are too few and far between to allow us much release from the ongoing stress of knowing an animal in our care is suffering.
I’m looking at this as a way to help me slow down my perception of the ever-faster passing of days. With October looming large and the standing order to keep Delilah completely inactive for two weeks, I’m hoping the days will drag for a while.
It’s not my preferred way to slow down the days, but already it feels like our sad dog has been hurting for far too long. The next two weeks are going to take forever if we can’t let her have her usual luxuriously long walks.
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Two Techniques
There are multiple methods to achieve a goal. I tend towards the concrete sequential, while Cyndie is gifted at abstract random. We appear to have spiders of both method types residing in our midst.
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Do you think these guys maybe studied under different architects? The conditions on this morning’s walk were ideal for seeing webs. Low sun, heavy dew.
This is a combination of photos where I expect to see the description that the first spider was fed a healthy diet, and the second spider was subjected to some addictive substance. Oh, dear. Look what it does to the poor thing.
Maybe it’s the same spider, and it is looking to capture two different kinds of prey. Did you consider that possibility?
I suspect an arachnologist would be able to offer a more studious analysis, but I prefer to go with the different architects explanation.
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Crazy
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yes
it feels crazy
like my storage is almost full
like my tires are getting thin
like grass growing faster than time
time that warps
unapologetically
the way water flows
unrelenting
the way love transcends
mysterious –yet not
not at all really
universal
like smiles
a language no one doesn’t understand
coming through loud and clear
without making
a single sound
unencumbered
by crass ulterior motives
seeking financial gain
just love
smiling
feeling
kind of
crazy
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Mood
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maybe it’s this mood I’m in
that has me feeling this way
falling head over heels
for another character
Anna Kendrick played
in a movie
and getting floored
by every song
on a John Hiatt album
from deep in the stack
when did we get this old
that we look like our parents
or some of us
like our grandparents
slogging away
at the day to day
letting time sail past
unaware how it pulls
us along on the crest
flying through moods
as they materialize
conjured from unlikely sources
a dream
a picture
a thought I once had
a dog I just remembered
from a long time ago
it’s all Jello
in different colors
before photo manipulation was all the rage
but it can’t be retrieved
no matter how long we wait
so we wrestle with the trick
of figuring out how it’s still connected
with this particular minute
and I wonder what it has to do
with this mood I still find myself in
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Relative Something 