Two Grand In Two Weeks

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

So I've been utterly unavailable for just about anything for the last couple of weeks. There are reasons for that.

With my particular complex of autoimmune conditions, I have only so many resources at my disposal. Around here, there are things that absolutely have to get done, no matter the circumstances. Pile enough of those on top of each other, and I have nothing left over for basic social engagement. For people who don't deal with these kinds of things, I realize that it's essentially impossible to understand how it is that I can write, but can't exchange basic conversation. The latter is much, much harder than the former, and infinitely more draining. Times like this? I ain't got it. And I've quit putting myself through the torture of trying to force-fake it.

Just so people understand the kind of thing that pushes me to this point, here's the deal: I've said that, since the first of the year, it seems that we've done nothing but shovel snow, shovel horseshit, and treat Cree's near-deadly case of founder. That's accurate as far as it goes, but it's not all of it. The rest is over the jump; proceed at own risk.

We shelled out $1,135 today. Cash. That pretty much wipes out the post-Christmas sales we've made.

If I'm lucky, I'll sleep tonight, since I didn't last night, nor did I a couple of nights ago, and to say that I running on fumes vastly overstates the amount of gas in the tank by now.

For the last two weeks, it's been a non-stop battle with the plumbing. Now, since we were forced into this tin can, this has been the case every.single.winter, and so we initially put it down to "Welp, it's that time again," and sucked it up. Except nothing worked. Last week was terrible; this week has been far worse. Water shut-offs every single day while we try to deal with it, to no avail; without plumbing entirely as much as with it this week. At our age, and with our various health conditions? It's not just an inconvenience; it's a fucking nightmare. Especially when the night's are in single digits, with wind chills much colder.

It was all complicated by the fact that, a couple of days ago, our spring thaw arrived way early. After two feet of snow mostly freezing solid, we now have rivers of mud. That photo at the top? That's what Wings plowed again yesterday, trying to clear enough of a section between this place and the studio to allow it to dry out before many more days (weeks?) go by. Off to the side? Yeah, that's anywhere from six inches to a foot yet, depending on where you are (the plowed piles are closer to two feet).

So, everything's melting, and then freezing solid again at night. We have a boxed heater (boxed, not box; made by hand by Wings and insulated) beneath the septic line in this place, and it stays on at night (and lately, during the day, too); heat wraps around the standpipe and spigot and the line itself; the wind barriers he built last year; other steps to keep the pipes from freezing.

All to no avail. I finally got him to agree to calling the plumber yesterday, and they confirmed what we had discovered: The secondary standpipe, the one that feeds water to this place, had a permanent slow leak, and the water was constantly seeping into the line, even when no water was "running."

It was actually worse than that. First, the guy who installed it when we were forced into this place more than five years ago did a shit job, and that's why the longstanding leak. More to the point, he fucked up the septic line installation itself, tilting it UPWARD instead of downward before entry, so that everything was being forced at an anti-gravity angle, AND was too close to the surface. No amount of heat tape, insulation, or anything else would have saved us. [Yes, we wound up firing the guy halfway through, after he disappeared for damn near a week and then returned wanting more cash up front, and this with us having had no running water for two weeks and actual temps of 20 below at night.] These were the guys we had fix his mess, but they had had no reason to go that deep on that go-round (or so we all thought).

Anyway, it was gonna be $500 right out the gate, just equipment and labor to clear the line. That didn't include replacing the pipe elbow that now had a gaping hole in it, nor the standpipe. We decided that we needed just to have them do it all, and so now, at last, we finally have water again, and maybe I'll get a shower in a few minutes.

While they were working, we had maintenance treatments to do on Cree, and I finally got the camera out to document it.

  

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

That above? That's Cree's left forefoot after unwrapping it and removing the hand-made clog. The white substance is dried SMZ paste, an old broad-spectrum antibiotic (to which I am so allergic that I cannot even get it on my hands). Its purpose was to treat the abscesses in her hoof from the founder, and this was her last dose (at least for now). 

After cleaning off the dried SMZ paste, this is what we were looking at:

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

I realize that no one has a frame of reference for what you're seeing here, but it's beautiful. The sole was bone-dry, which means there's no infectious drainage or seepage. The hoof looks a little oddly-shaped because that's what you do with laminitic horses: You shave off as much of the toe as possible and lower their heels so that the weight is off the forefoof as much as possible. Toward the front, near the toe, you can see what looks like a U-shape, deeper on the left, less so on the right; both of those are where the main abscesses were. [They still are, to some degree, way up in the hoof wall; we're not misleading ourselves about the degree of the complications here. But there is now no bleeding, nor even bruising, at the surface.]

On the left, that is also the spot where the coffin bone has rotated so badly that it's coming through her sole. Our task now is to try to keep her sufficiently treated and comfortable that she doesn't further inflame it, and see if we can help her build new sole and hoof wall tissue. It can be done, if everything comes together just right, but it's a horse-by-horse and hoof-by-hoof kind of thing, and there are no guarantees. We know this.

Two weeks ago, you could press lightly on that left-hand depression and feel it give way, feel the hardness of the coffin bone trying to break through. It's still there, make no mistake . . . but some of the mushiness of the sole is gone. It's firmer, and the bone does not feel as though it's going to drop through at any second. It could, of course, but it doesn't have that feeling of imminent disaster that it had two weeks ago.

This, of course, is the remainder of the two grand of the total.  We paid that our last week, also in cash. It was covered, with some cushioning for future vet work. But the "cushion" for day-to-day expenses (i.e., sales made) is what paid the piper plumber today.

No, we don't want people giving money. We want to earn it, via the gallery: selling art; exchange for value. Dassit. But we need exposure, of course, so if y'all would be willing to do another round of sharing the Web site with your networks (and testimonials are helpful, too), we'd appreciate it. 

So would Cree.

And now, maybe I can get a shower. And some sleep tonight.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.