Posts Tagged ‘sleep deprivation’
Leadership Dispute
After three days of less than adequate sleep, I found myself struggling to keep my eyes open after dinner last night. It was great to know my body was willing to make up for what I had denied it, but if I went to sleep too early, I’d wake up way too soon. Postponing sleep until closer to my usual time was worth it to get back on a more normal overall schedule again.
I arrived home yesterday to a report from Cyndie that Mix and Light had entered into a phase of heightened conflict, maybe in competition for the role of herd leader.
She described a change of increased aggression from Mix toward Light. For a while, we were seeing just the opposite between those two.
At the second feeding yesterday, Cyndie found Mix standing firmly in Light’s usual feed bucket spot, without protest from Light. That is the station we serve first, and Mix appeared to be claiming it.
Light just stood back and didn’t attempt to eat from any of the buckets.
I asked where Swings was this whole time. Cyndie said Swings has been hanging out with Mia, which she doesn’t usually do because Swings doesn’t like Mia. They were grazing grass together and showed little interest in coming up to eat grains.
I’m just fine with Mix wanting to be the herd leader. More valuable to me would be to have her demonstrate some visible leadership on a consistent basis. If Light gets relegated to the second or third rung on their level of hierarchy, I hope it doesn’t mess too much with her self-image.
Light was rescued from a kill pen on two different occasions and was spookily skinny when she came to This Old Horse. Even though she looks outwardly healthy now, I would guess she suffered enough psychological trauma to leave her mentally fragile ever since. That hasn’t been the way I have looked at her in the past, but since that last Vet visit, my perspective has been readjusted to a more realistic interpretation of the horses’ ages and the abuses they have suffered.
While discussing the horses last night with Cyndie, we jointly came to the recognition that Light’s clinginess to Swings could be a reflection of an insecurity, not a desire to lead. Although we don’t know exactly how she ended up in the kill pen, it occurred to us that she might never be sure that it won’t happen again somehow.
Whatever it is that the horses might be trying to work out among themselves, I hope they come to an arrangement that satisfies each of them soon. It’s much more soothing to have them be loving with each other than to have disputes.
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Nothing, Really
Nothing. But that didn’t stop me from trying. This is what I think happened. I drove home from the lake alone, leaving shortly after I woke up. Upon my arrival, Cyndie served a delicious slice of quiche for a brunch meal. After unpacking my things, I just wanted to relax. I turned on some of the Olympic coverage and let sleep nibble at the edges of my consciousness.
The nibbling failed to become a complete bite and I squandered the rest of the afternoon and evening accomplishing very little of productive value. Not even a respectable nap.
I think it was a result of getting too little sleep the two nights prior, compounded by going out two days in a row to tax my lungs in the smoky air by biking to exertion. That resulted in sleep deprivation and lung congestion that left me uncharacteristically lethargic.
Left me with nothing, really.
This week’s adventures should be much more interesting. I will be home alone because Cyndie is taking Melissa and her two girls up to the lake for their annual summer getaway week at Wildwood. She is taking Delilah with her, so that will simplify my responsibilities here significantly.
No dog and no chickens. It’ll just be the horses, Pequenita, and me. And hopefully, a lot less smoke in the air.
Wouldn’t that be something?
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Plane Delay
Our plan for the day played out perfectly, right up to the point where the pilot, standing next to his suitcase, took the microphone to speak to the throng standing in queue to board.
The walk-around revealed a leak that would require taking the plane back to the hangar for repair.
How can you argue with a delay situation that involves not flying in a plane with mechanical issues?
We didn’t settle into a bed until the wee hours of this morning, but did so safe, sound, and thrilled to be laying heads on pillows.
We’re here!
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Animal Care
Caring for our animals is a lot like caring for children, except they will never grow to become self-sufficient and eventually move out and have a life of their own. Do I sound tired?
You know that part of my life where I go off on bike rides because I find time to embark on such a frivolous pursuit? It happens a lot less often after we decided to have pets that require so much care. Luckily, humans tend to fall in love with animals almost as much as they do with their own children, so it ends up being a labor of love.
Of course, when you love people and pets, it is tough to watch them suffer illness. Even though it took almost three days for her to reveal symptoms, Cyndie thinks that Delilah’s current problems have a high likelihood of being the result of her activity while roaming loose on the neighboring properties last Saturday.
Tuesday afternoon, when I got home from work, Cyndie reported two interesting morsels of news: 1) She found the fully intact and well-preserved remains of the infamous goldfish when cleaning debris from our landscape pond. Surreptitiously deposited back in May of 2016, it was only spotted two times over the course of it’s time here. 2) Delilah was suffering from severe diarrhea.
Seconds after they followed me into the house, Delilah vomited on the old Hays family farm rug in the porch. When Cyndie went down to the barn to tend to the horses, she left Delilah in the house to rest. A few minutes later, Delilah came to the chair I was sitting in and looked at me.
I hustled to get her leash and get out the door. She practically pulled me across the driveway and down the slope into the trees and leaves where she experienced the worst canine diarrhea I had ever witnessed. Our doggie was seriously ill with some gastrointestinal disruption.
Tuesday night was one of constant sleep interruptions, and Cyndie described yesterday as producing gradually reducing symptoms. Delilah ate some rice with chicken broth. I took her for a walk after work and saw what we hope was one of the last gasps of an attempt to release the pressure of mostly virtual diarrhea.
I marveled at Delilah’s ability to proceed with the remainder of the walk in her usual mode of inspired curiosity at the world of scents. It was as if the disaster that I just watched playing out in her digestive system had never occurred.
It made the role of loving witness to her suffering that much easier to bear.
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Remembering Clarity
I’m trying to remember what clarity is like. It seems like it was a long time ago that I last experienced a moment of clarity. Lately, everything is a combination of spider webs and fog interspersed with moments of wind whipped precipitation and hours of lost sleep.
Not lost as in, I don’t know where I put it, but the kind of lost which I can never get back. It’s gone. No longer exists.
But I can make more. There is more where that came from.
Don’t worry. Even Delilah is confused by all this.
She can’t figure out why I’m not getting over that moment of her violating the sanctity of my dinner plate. If I thought she could understand, I’d explain that it’s because I don’t want to get over it.
Our dog is now facing a new regimen of training in which I re-establish my dominance over her.
I’m not confident that she is putting 2 and 2 together, but I do know that she understands what I’m after when I demand she lay down and let me straddle her and stand very purposefully. She does not want to give up her power without a fair amount of resistance. Outlasting her is one thing that I may not have enough patience for.
I tend to think of myself as a patient man, but I’m finding out there are some situations to which that doesn’t apply.
Or maybe it’s just hampered by a lack of clarity.
I’m hoping that a few nights of decent sleep might produce a new dose of that forgotten clarity. Now, if I could just remember how it was that I got a decent night’s sleep.
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Relative Something 