 |
| Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. |
She was up and on her feet at least from seven-ish this morning until just before eleven: moving around, eating, walking across the pen to the water trough. A little before 11:00, she lay down in the small stall . . . and promptly lost her clog, natch. It came off all in one piece, bandage in it and tape around it, so we didn't have to hunt for it in the snow, at least.
Yeah, about that . . . in some places here on the land, we're already at two feet+; a couple of times, I had to hop out into snow up almost to my hips (and I'm TALL). Most places here are about 18". And counting. Most of that just since five this morning. We had to go to the post office and the feed store to pick up her meds, and the truck got stuck before we got around the first curve of our drive. While he plowed the drive and the space around the truck, I shoveled the damn thing out. Yes, me. By hand. We made it before it got too bad too see again.
Back to Cree. We were not going to change the dressing and refit the clog until tomorrow, but she obviously had other ideas. So . . . clean the hoof, rinse it, dry it, add the SMZ paste and gauze dressing, bandage it, hold the clog in place, tape it. That's what's on her left forefoot in the photo above. The vet recommended to me last night that we tape her other three legs to provide better support for the redistribution of weight that goes with this sort of thing, especially because she's rotated somewhat on the right front, too. So, Cree now has leggings. Equine couture.
This weather is an absolute bitch for her condition, so that's going to complicate matters. If this were summer, it would still be bad, but managing it would be a hell of a lot easier. In this stuff? It takes a LOT of extra work, because this is now suddenly, once again, colic season, and she's on a whole pharmacy of meds right now. [Oh, and the major one for the hoof infection? Both the paste and the orals? I'm horribly allergic to it. Can't even touch the pills with bare hands. Just lovely.]
So. It's been a long, hard, tiring day. Tomorrow will be more of the same. A huge amount of heavy physical labor for both of us; I can't remember the last time I shoveled so much snow. And the temps are about to go skating down below zero again at night, so that's always fun. Cree is, in a word, miserable when it comes to dealing with the weather and her foot, BUT . . . she is fully engaged in her own healing, so there's that. She still wants to be here, wants to hang with us, so that's what we're gonna do.
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.
