Accidents and tantrums; starved creatures and dead things.

Photo copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved.

Miskwaki watching his girl from a distance. He's a lot more invested than she is at that moment.

::Sigh:: so, two mornings in a row of effed-up awakenings. Yesterday, it was these two going at it through the ProPanels; if you click on the photo, you'll see that the fence to the left of the trough has been kicked to hell. Woke me up out of what, for me, was an incredibly sound sleep, and set the tone for the rest of the day. Not a good one. This morning, I knew it was trouble the moment I hit the landing; Raven had had a massive accident spread over both the dining room and kitchen rugs (no, you really, really don't want me to describe how absolutely, horrifyingly bad it was). Those would be the rugs Wings had just washed thoroughly and we'd put down again the day before. So my first moments up, when I am at my least stable balance-wise and most in pain everywhere, I spent cleaning up that mess. Took me almost half an hour to clean up and haul both rugs outside, and that didn't count the later hosing down of the two rugs, soaking them in detergent (post-Nature's Miracle application), and then hosing them down again (the last three items were done mostly by Wings, because, well, heavy rugs and a mostly-useless hand/wrist don't go together very well).

The latter event was apparently due to something he ate yesterday, heaven only knows what. The former, with the horses, was a direct result of Miika's past. Well, both of them, actually. Miskwaki, when he arrived here more than five years ago now, was not used to eating out of a trough. Add to that the fact that, at that point, we still had Cree, Harmony, Shade, and Spock all here, and with dietary considerations for the first three of those, meaning that they got mostly grass hay with just a little alfalfa mixed in. If Wings put the alfalfa in last, they'd eat it off the top and then glare at him all day, hoping that he'd pretend all the grass hay wasn't still there and add more of the sweet stuff. So he started mixing it in, with mot of it on the bottom so they had to work their way through the grass to get at it.

Enter Smart Guy. And by that, I mean Smart Ass. He didn't like sticking his head under the upper angle of the trough anyway. So he'd haul all the grass hay out and dump it on the ground in search of the good stuff. And then there'd be a ton of perfectly good grass hay all over the ground, where Harmony and Cree and eventually Ice would promptly piss on it (because the hay was more absorbent than the ground and kept it from splashing on their legs; they're wasteful, not stupid).

So anyway, this becomes a habit for Miskwaki, and now he just hauls 80% of it out on the ground anyway. He eats some; leaves some. Miika, though? She's a machine. She's the most efficient eater I've ever seen; she will work her way methodically through any amount of hay, and leave exactly NONE of it behind. So Wings started pitchforking what Miskwaki leaves on the ground over to her side of the ProPanel barrier, where she promptly eats all of it. Suddenly Miskwaki didn't like that so much.

Back to yesterday morning: Overnight, Miika had eaten all of hers, but Miskwaki still had (for him) a relatively small amount on the ground. Miika didn't understand this; why was it going to waste over there on his side, underfoot, when she could be stuffing her face with it? So she began pawing at the panel with her hoof, as she does when she wants something, and presumably braying about it. Miskwaki got pissed, turned his ass around, and kicked at the fence, and next thing we knew (first thing we knew, actually, since it's what woke us up), they're going at it hammer and tongs against the ProPanel.

Found out yesterday from a source well-placed to know that the reason Miika's so possessive over hay is that she's literally never had it before. Apparently, she was never fed. Like, at all. All she apparently ever had to eat was what she could forage, and this year especially, that was guaranteed to be mostly scrub. Explains her bloating when she arrived here. Also explains her attitude toward food; she eats every single blade. Because she hasn't been here long enough to internalize the idea that the food's not going away; that she won't go hungry ever again.

Still. Oh, and did I mention the dead dove when I went outside this morning? And we just caught the Trickster Twins eyeing a chicken agin, and so they're back in Doggy Jail again.

Between the dove and the lack of sleep and the inability to breathe properly the all-over pain from that fall, I've already bawled more than once today. Lots of smoke; no rain, although lots of gray clouds. We need to make it rain the other way, too, because the stress is killing me. So. Please share. Links:

• My new Patreon, The Interstices (Writing Between Worlds);
• Wings's site, for sales, with new items posted;
• Wings's direct PayPal link;
• A way to buy me coffee (which actually goes to all of our medical bills, which continue to mount);
• Amazon wishlist, which mostly consists of animal and household stuff;
• Partial registry #1, from Bed, Bath and Beyond. There are new kitchen-y things on it now, stuff that I didn't realize we'd need to replace (either because the RV ruined it or because we gave it away when we had to downsize).

That all I've got. My entire existence is focused around chasing sales to pay medical bills, and it's not going well.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2018; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.