Me and Scout

Me and Scout

04 August 2011

Sometimes things don’t work

04 August 2011, Thursday, 1543, Home Patch
Pretty tired today.  I’ve had some trouble sleeping and I’m not sure why.  I think I kind of messed up my schedule last week during Vacation Bible School and haven’t quite got back on track yet.  The heat may have something to do with it as well.  Yesterday, we did some clean up work in the Orchard behind Grandmother’s house.  One of us was on the tractor, while the other did pick up.  I cannot seem to get a chainsaw to work with any consistency.  It has always been like this.  I can get one to run for a day or half a day and then it will quit and I can no longer get it started.  The best luck I’ve had recently is with Dad’s and it’s a Stihl, which are great, but I used it for about a day and a half and now I can’t get it to keep running.  So, I cut some of the smaller stuff down with a hackknife and hauled junk around by hand.  Pretty exhausting.  There is more to do, but we are getting ahead of it.
Tomorrow, I need to shore up some of the fences for the horse pasture.  A reenactor friend is moving out of state and I am taking care of his horse until he can find a place to put his.  I doubt his horse will run off, but it’s good to be on the safe side.  Our horses have no reason to press the fences, they are getting fed and are happy, but when you change the dynamic it makes you wonder.
Rebel is still not right in his back.  That is another thing that I will try tomorrow.  The vet came out on Tuesday and we poked, prodded, tried to ride, and observed, but he couldn’t come up with a reason for his issues.  I gave him some bute today and will do so tomorrow and try to ride him gently to see how he does.  Bute is like horse ibuprofen.  People use advil to get through the pain while healing up.  I will try to give him a chance to heal up gradually.  If not, then I will take him back to the vet and try some additional diagnostic steps.  I can’t help but worry about him a little bit.
I think we finally have all of our calves identified. At least all the ones that are tagged, which is only about half of what we have.  The prices right now are really good, so I need to identify which ones might be good for sale and try to identify them somehow or just get them tagged like the rest of them.

01 August 2011

Yankee-Snake

01 August 2011, Monday, 0800, Home Patch
We expanded our tiny little backyard area for the puppies on Saturday.  Now, it is the actual size of a backyard.  I hate to admit it, but my wife might be right about something.  She proposed the theory that the puppies would be more inclined to use the bathroom outside if they had more room.  I contended that it would not make a difference.  So far, we have not had the problem that we had before.  I am happy to be wrong on this one.
While I was working on the fence, Anna was pulling up all the poison ivy that had rooted in the backyard.  Our special soap usually works pretty good and I think it is working on her, but my brief encounter with it on Saturday is not going well.  Anyway, I am pretty convinced that alcohol and vitamin C work pretty good.  The bad rash on my arm is drying up relatively quickly.
There is a reenactment coming up soon and I have yet to test Rebel.  His back was still bothering him a couple of weeks ago, even though I rode him a few weeks before that and he was fine.  I will try to ride him this morning.  That way if he doesn’t do well, I still have time to call the vet.  What’s weird is that I can’t seem to find a sore spot.  Maybe he is faking it.
A couple of days ago, I was getting ready to take a shower and Anna was in the soon to be expanded backyard.  I heard her yell my name out.  I hollered back, letting her know my condition, then she returned something about a snake.  I threw on some shorts and tried to decide what I had that would make a good snake weapon.  A gun is not the best thing to kill a snake with, unless it is a shotgun.  I got into a pistol battle with a tiny moccasin once and expended a great deal of ammo.  They are just a really small target.  Plus, you have to deal with the ringing in your ears and cleaning your weapon.  The hackknife was in the Gator, which was down the road in the red barn.  Then I realized I had the perfect weapon.  I grabbed my 1860 Light Cavalry Saber and headed to the backyard.  Anna was leaned over with a long stick, pinning the intruder to the ground.  It was a moccasin all right; small, but decidedly unwelcome.  My trusty saber made short work of him.  Anna did a great job and it illustrates the importance of being married on the frontier and snake killing etiquette.  It’s always better to have two people when encountering a snake.  You need one person to get the weapon and the other to keep an eye on (or in this case, trap) the animal.  It is unsettling to be alone, go back in the house to get a weapon and then find that it is gone.
So, I will get to brag to my reenactor buddies that my saber has actually dispatched an invading enemy.