Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[RoyalChick]

Wow, you have a shoulder chicken AND a beautiful Lady on your arm!

I am becoming quite the LF fan. I love her color (similar to Magggie’s) and her spangles are just lovely.

 

[ManueB]

I rarely read this thread, and am not sure if I have ever posted in it, but I happened to be reading it yesterday and wanted to give you my deepest condolences. I know your heart is hurting, but Chaco is no longer in pain.

I hope my own story will give you a little comfort. Colic can be such a difficult thing to deal with, and can range from a mild “stomach ache” that is easily dealt with, to a massive impaction that is frequently fatal. I dealt with the full range of that in my beautiful gelding, Strider. He was my pride and joy. I owned his mother, and had bred him, raised him, and trained him all myself. So the first time he colicked at around 5 years old I was determined to save him. The surgery cost several thousand dollars, he had a coastal impaction. So I never fed him coastal again, he got only alfalfa. The recovery took a few months or restricting his activity and monitoring his diet and incision. Finally he seemed to be all healed up.

About a year later, he colicked again and I rushed him to the vet. They tubes him and this time it turned out to be a simple fix. We had seeded part of the pasture to try to get it to grow some winter grass, and he had discovered the grass seed and licked it up from the ground. Along with a ton of dirt. And once in his stomach the grass seed swelled up. They flushed/drained his stomach through the tube, and took about 3-4 five-gallon buckets of fluid/seed/dirt out of it. Once again he seemed to recover just fine.

A year later it happened again. He colicked and I rushed him to the vet. They examined him and decided it was something more major, and would require probably require another surgery. They recommended that I take him to the Texas A&M vet college/hospital for further examination. So we made the hour long drive. After more testing and a lot of tears I decided to let him go, to not put him through another surgery and recovery, and held his head as they put him down. Because it is a teaching hospital I gave them permission to do a necropsy on him, which would also let them practice some surgical skills. The next day they called me and said I had definitely made the right decision. His intestines had dozens of adhesions that had developed from the first surgery, which were keeping things from moving freely. They said it wasn’t uncommon for it to happen after an abdominal surgery, and that at that time they hadn’t figured out any way to predict when it would happen, or what caused some people/animals to get them worst than other. They were surprised he had made it as long as he did without colicking again, and said he would have been prone to it happening frequently for the rest of his life.

I miss him still, and even though it has been over 10 years since I let him go it took me several hours to type this. I kept having to take a break because I couldn’t see through the tears. But I take comfort in the good memories, and in knowing that he never again has to go through that pain and discomfort.

Worst part is right now I can’t even find any old pics of him to post.

This is a sad tale, and reading your post, one can feel how much loosing Strider still hurts. Maybe sometime you can share with us those good memories you have of him. It sounds like he was the horse of your life.
To be honest your story and Alex's have me reconsidering getting a pony, I'm not sure I'd be able to deal with what you had to go through.

According to both Rosie and her Papaw they only slow gaited for 4 minutes up the road before they hit the hill. After Rosie went inside and I started to jump him he told me he encouraged it to get her out of her head. He saw she was nervous and thought it would help her confidence. I have to admit he was right, she came back all smiles and did not want to get off of Russ. I guess I have to defer to her papaw on that situation. I have never had a bad accident on a horse where I broke something, he has. Looking back on it, he did the right thing. Before he and Dirt rode up I could hear the fear in her voice, see her shaking and several times telling me to not take off the lead rope. She was very very close to being done after only a few minutes, instead she ended up riding until dark.
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This was a beautiful and honest follow-up to a hopeful post! I have two language questions for you southerners and @RebeccaBoyd I hope you won't get upset with the second one.

First, what is slow gait, is it a slow trot ?
And second, I first thought Rosie's papaw was her dad, as we say "papa" in french for dad, but then I looked it up on the web, and it said "southern expression for paternal grand-father". So I hope I'm not being rude by asking if Rosie's pawpaw is her dad, or her grand dad ?

Pre employment physical and gotta fill the cup for a drug test. Apparently there was a paperwork snafu and I thought I was done but I gotta fill the cup again

And I studied so hard for the first drug test

I thought of you and @Ponypoor yesterday evening, we tried our first ever jar of homemade cherry brandy. I was afraid it wouldn't be tasty as they are not sour cherry but plain sweet ones. Well I love it and I'm sure our three jars won't last long .
So, tell us all, to which of the positions you applied for should we be having a toast ?

 

[ManueB]

Alcohol promotion tax.

 

[featherhead007]

My only political opinion this whole week:

 

[GregnLety]

This is a sad tale, and reading your post, one can feel how much loosing Strider still hurts. Maybe sometime you can share with us those good memories you have of him. It sounds like he was the horse of your life.
To be honest your story and Alex's have me reconsidering getting a pony, I'm not sure I'd be able to deal with what you had to go through.

This was a beautiful and honest follow-up to a hopeful post! I have two language questions for you southerners and @RebeccaBoyd I hope you won't get upset with the second one.

First, what is slow gait, is it a slow trot ?
And second, I first thought Rosie's papaw was her dad, as we say "papa" in french for dad, but then I looked it up on the web, and it said "southern expression for paternal grand-father". So I hope I'm not being rude by asking if Rosie's pawpaw is her dad, or her grand dad ?

I thought of you and @Ponypoor yesterday evening, we tried our first ever jar of homemade cherry brandy. I was afraid it wouldn't be tasty as they are not sour cherry but plain sweet ones. Well I love it and I'm sure our three jars won't last long .
So, tell us all, to which of the positions you applied for should we be having a toast ?
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I am going back to the oilfield as a field service technician for control systems. This was my favorite job ever and I will be working for a good supervisor and great manager. I have worked for the manager in Dubai back in 2016 and he was super. When he took his current position he asked my supervisor where is that big F'ing hillbilly, where's Greg?

 

[RoyalChick]

This is a sad tale, and reading your post, one can feel how much loosing Strider still hurts. Maybe sometime you can share with us those good memories you have of him. It sounds like he was the horse of your life.
To be honest your story and Alex's have me reconsidering getting a pony, I'm not sure I'd be able to deal with what you had to go through.

This was a beautiful and honest follow-up to a hopeful post! I have two language questions for you southerners and @RebeccaBoyd I hope you won't get upset with the second one.

First, what is slow gait, is it a slow trot ?
And second, I first thought Rosie's papaw was her dad, as we say "papa" in french for dad, but then I looked it up on the web, and it said "southern expression for paternal grand-father". So I hope I'm not being rude by asking if Rosie's pawpaw is her dad, or her grand dad ?

I thought of you and @Ponypoor yesterday evening, we tried our first ever jar of homemade cherry brandy. I was afraid it wouldn't be tasty as they are not sour cherry but plain sweet ones. Well I love it and I'm sure our three jars won't last long .
So, tell us all, to which of the positions you applied for should we be having a toast ?
View attachment 3288813

Lovely post as always. I am beginning to think I need the recipes for these home made brandies. Is it fruit+sugar+brandy?
My mother made sloe gin from blackthorn (sloe) berries and that was beautiful in color and yummy!

 

[RebeccaBoyd]

This is a sad tale, and reading your post, one can feel how much loosing Strider still hurts. Maybe sometime you can share with us those good memories you have of him. It sounds like he was the horse of your life.
To be honest your story and Alex's have me reconsidering getting a pony, I'm not sure I'd be able to deal with what you had to go through.

This was a beautiful and honest follow-up to a hopeful post! I have two language questions for you southerners and @RebeccaBoyd I hope you won't get upset with the second one.

First, what is slow gait, is it a slow trot ?
And second, I first thought Rosie's papaw was her dad, as we say "papa" in french for dad, but then I looked it up on the web, and it said "southern expression for paternal grand-father". So I hope I'm not being rude by asking if Rosie's pawpaw is her dad, or her grand dad ?

I thought of you and @Ponypoor yesterday evening, we tried our first ever jar of homemade cherry brandy. I was afraid it wouldn't be tasty as they are not sour cherry but plain sweet ones. Well I love it and I'm sure our three jars won't last long .
So, tell us all, to which of the positions you applied for should we be having a toast ?
View attachment 3288813

Good questions and nope the 2nd one did not bother me at all. As far as a slow-gait. All 3 of our horses are gaited breeds, 2 Tennessee Walking Horses and Rocky Mountain. This means they will both Pace and or Rack. A Racking gait if you listen is a 4 beat smooth gait and what my dad prefers. A slow-gait is sort of the equivalent of a slow trot. Definitely not the walk that the Dr. told her to stay at. Papaw is what she calls her grandfather.

 

[rural mouse]

Keep a close watch on the bites. Snakes carry some different bacteria in their mouths and bites from them can get infected with some nasty things.

Snake tax
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Oh, her bling!

 

[featherhead007]

Oh, her bling!

She grew up big and beautiful, didn’t she?

 

[rural mouse]

Finally caught some Cheetah pics.

From August 6 (before moult)

Note the curve of his "mane"

Note the saddle feathers


Today

(Twirp is also starting to look ruffled)

His mane is definitely assorted lengths

He's still surprisingly sleek looking rather than rumpled like the ladies. The last pic really shows the blue legs too.