Trust. Also a lot of work.

Photo copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved.

See that?  That's trust. Also a lot of work.

If you click on the photo, you'll see what makes it so amazing. That thing in Wings's left hand? Is a Makita grinder. And what he's doing with it? Trimming Miika's snowshoes.

No, it's not what it sounds like. For those of you who don't know, Miika came to us a little over a year ago. Nine years old, and for pretty much all of that nine years, no socialization, and no human contact beyond the minimum required to toss some hay occasionally or give her and the other some water. Her hooves had had no attention whatsoever, presumably her whole life, and her hooves had been left to grow in such a way that she became pigeon-toed. They were that long and cracked already when she came to us. Farrier work? Are you kidding me? She was so easily spooked that you could barely touch her on the back, never mind get to her feet.

And so, for the last 13 months, Wings has been working on slowly desensitizing her — to everything. It's only been since early in the year that he's been able to touch her feet, and lifting them has only been possible in the last couple of months. Yes, we've known her hooves needed attention, but with a horse that's been neglected/abused/denied socialization, there's only so much you can do so fast, and hoof trims are not among them. Especially when you're going to be dealing with hoof material this thick:

Photo copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved.

No, that's from the end of the hoof.  The part he trimmed off yesterday.

Yup. So you see what we've been up against. And farriers around here can't be bothered to return calls, much less show up; believe me, we've tried. [The old one is a no go; no one who punches horses gets our business.] So Wings finally decided that it was going to be entirely down to him, and over recent weeks, he's stepped up the desensitization work on her legs and feet. And he decided that yesterday was the day.

He'd already tried more ordinary methods of trimming — nippers, etc. Her hooves were too long and too thick and too hard, and it was a physical impossibility, to say nothing of the effects on her psyche to have someone whaling on the nippers with the amount of force that would have been needed. And so he hit upon the grinder. We had no idea whether it would work. Even if it would, would she flip at the noise and vibration and bolt?

So he let he look at the grinder with it off, sniff it, mouth it if she wanted. Then he turned it on, and it's not too loud, fortunately, and let her do it all over again. And while he had her halted with the lead attached, he elected not to tie her up. It was the right decision. In a few moments, he had her right front ground down to more normal dimensions, and that chip up there was one of the results. I won't post the pics of what her hooves looked like before, because they're rather triggering even for me, and we've been dealing with this for over a year now. But they look much healthier now. There's a lot of work yet to be done on them, but he got that far on all four, and got them painted with hoof oil, and got a little of her hard-as-rocks frogs removed, too.

She's a good girl. Still, it's all only because she trusts him. And because we, especially he, put in the work. And believe me, it's been a lot of work.

In the meantime, everything else marches on, including the autoimmune complex and the asthma and the coronary artery concern (all of which, hey, guess what, could all be bound up with this — not necessarily caused by or causing, but playing off each other, certainly) for me; including the knee pain and the prospect of replacement and the radiology labs and the other concerns for him.

So do the expenses. Two hundred Monday for equipment and meds I haven't even had a chance to use yet; well over a hundred yesterday, with a followup in about ten days, and an appointment with my regular doc before then, with, I'm now reasonably sure, some very costly labs to follow. Two more appointments coming up for Wings, too, the first tomorrow. No idea what they're going to decide to do with regard to the new and visibly-growing lump on the other side of my throat.

We had to pick up both the truck and the mower last Friday, and that was hellish all by itself (four figures between the two). We also have to get the hay cut, probably this weekend, to make it fit around the weather and not have it either burn up in the fields or drown, get moldy, and rot. So to make all this happen, I have to bring in a lot more scratch — a LOT more — to cover everything, and that means sales, which are way, way down. My pain levels are also completely out of control these days, the kind of pain that renders you utterly non-functional, except that I don't have a choice but to keep working at everything. So you know what comes next.

Sales here; testimonials here; wishlist (such as it is still — I've added some candles of the nontoxic variety to deal with the lingering mildew odor in the utility room while it's drying out from the plumbing disaster, the kind that are not supposed to impair my breathing, the kind we can't get locally; I've also added a couple of supplements I have to take and our one real vice, the coffee we prefer [cheaper by the case, and the thing that's probably highest priority]) here. 

Speaking of testimonials, new ones are posted at long last; if you haven't submitted yours, please do, because this helps us make sales (and we keep you as anonymous as you want to be; you can see the kinds of options people choose in the various entries). We need more folks to send them in, too. 

Wings dropped three new works Saturday, and they're posted here (one is also featured today at his site and in the post below this one). Please go to their respective entries on his site and share them all. And if you're interested in one yourself, believe me, you won't be disappointed; these are truly extraordinary. He also dropped three new pieces a few days ago, including an absolutely phenomenal pair of dangle earrings; the post is here. That's on top of several new bead pieces a couple of weeks ago; you can find the summary post here. The new butterfly concha belt dropped a few days ago, and it is absolutely incredible. We really need to sell it; that would take care of looming medical stuff, at least in part. And while I spend every spare moment chasing those sales, there aren't many spare moments for me these days, especially with my ongoing breathing issues and whatever else is going on that they haven't identified yet; new labs and meds and equipment to that end having to be paid for next week. So please, help us get the word out. I've got to bring in more sales somehow.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2019; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.