Wow, I don't even know where to start. I've been meaning to get on here and update everybody on the happenings around the farm but as life goes on and continues to happen, the days go by so quickly lately.
The new venture I've undertaken giving riding lessons is really exploding. I'm up to 10 official students and another 3 mom's may want to start up during the day while the kids are in school. I'm trying to get used to shifting my work schedule to '2nd shift' as right now all my students are school kids that don't get out of school until around 3ish. I have been REALLY busy from 3 - 9pm it seems. This place is starting to really liven up after school.
I've been trying to keep up with normal tasks and maintenance during the day when I'm here by myself. Been getting a lot of things fixed and ready for winter. I'm getting more and more comfortable learning how to operate a lot of the tools around here and gradually learning how a lot of the things work that I never put much thought into in the past since Russ always took care of those types of things. Like the water pumps .... and how they work .... and where the shut off valves are .... and where the well is and what's in the well ..... the septic system and how it works and should be maintained .... where all the breakers and electrical boxes scattered everywhere are around the farm. I've lived here for over 20 years but never had to deal with any of that so I just didn't. Now I know. It's not really that hard. Just have to learn it all.
In among all of this 'learning' ..... I had a new little guest appear last Wednesday morning at my doorstep. A tiny, little chihuahua dog was sitting outside when I let the other dogs out to pee. He has a noticable collar mark around his neck so I automatically assumed that he somehow slipped his collar and got away from his family and wandered to the farm somehow. I called the local vet, the cops, and KLMJ (a local radio station) and told them all that he was here in case his family called looking for him. In the meantime he has settled in quite nicely with all the other dogs and seems to be taking to farm life very well. He rides in a car very well ..... sleeps on my bed...... drinks out of my water glass on the table ..... pees on everything in the house ..... yep, he fits right in with everyone else. :o) It's now Monday and I haven't heard anything from anyone trying to find him. I have named him Paco ...... and am hoping his family finds him soon before I get too attached to him. He is a little sweetie. Oh .... and he graciously brought a nice house warming gift with him ..... fleas. So now eveybody is itching. I haven't had fleas in years here. Crap. When you have 12 dogs, fleas are NOT fun. Oh well, I know it was a matter of time before I got them again. I know they'll be gone when it freezes out but in the meantime I'm headed to petmeds.com to try to get some cheap advantage to try to combat the little pests before winter. Just one more thing to have to deal with ...
I also have a new horse here on the farm -- Justa Chief. One of the families taking lessons wanted to buy their own horse and board out here. I helped them find Chief and we all absolutely love him. Supposedly he was a son of a gun out in a pasture with a group of horses -- very dominant. He was gelded late in life and they said he is very mean to other horses. I told the family ... well, he can't be any meaner than Reymond, so let's just turn them all out together and watch the rodeo. Turns out they weren't completely accurate. No fireworks. No kicking. No squealing. Nothing. Reymond and Chief are best friends now. He is loving life living in the pasture and having his new family dote all over him. It is a very good fit all the way around.
Now I'm looking for two more just like him. That same family would like another one and a new client would like one, too. That will make three more boarders. It is looking like Dragonfire Dancing Horses may just make it as a self sufficient farm. I still need 10-15 more full time students so I can get up to 4 a day Mon-Sat and I need a few more boarders for that extra cash flow to keep things operational. I am sleeping a little better knowing that things just may work out ......I'm still not out of the water yet but I'm getting closer all the time.
The last big 'issue' that has risen is my big computer took a big dump last week. ....and to top it all off, my external hard drive that I use as my back up drive .... that I thought was perfectly safe and could never be affected by a virus ...... was knocked out, too. I've got info back to 1990 on that thing. Tens of THOUSANDS of pics. Not exaggerating. Seriously. Over 40 websites are housed on that thing. Tax records, business records, all our KnR info for the past 20 years. Yeah. Scary. You may say --- well, you should have backed it all up. That WAS my back up drive. I didn't think a virus could get to it. Apparently it can. The good news is that it is still showing that drive has info on it even though I can't see it. It's in there. I just need someone smarter than me to pull it out of there and bring it back to life. I am praying that they can fix it or I'm pretty screwed.
Oh, and in the midst of all this activity ...... Buddy has gone blind. Yep. One of my Rat Terriers. He was dumped off here about 10 years ago. Skin and bones. Scared to death. We nursed him back to health and he has been a great little dog since then. No issues whatsoever. A couple weeks ago he was slightly congested. Sounded like his sinuses were filled up. He was all congested in his nose but it wasn't runny at all. No fever. No other symptoms of a virus or sickness .... just congested nose. He had a hard time breathing through his nose so he started breathing through his mouth. I figured it was allergies or maybe just a bad cold. Well, all of a sudden I noticed on Saturday that he was walking around really weird with his eyes bugging out and his ears pricked forward ....... and was running into walls. I watched him a while ..... yep, he is completely BLIND. Can't see anything. I don't know if it was a slow thing or if it just hit but all I know is he can't see ANYTHING right now. He was perfectly find three weeks ago. Sniffly nose a couple weeks ago . Now completely and totally blind. I took him into the vet this morning. Zach is stumped.. No fever. No signs of illness (other than the snuffly nose). He drew blood. We're going to check for normal signs of cancer or raised white blood cell activity. We're both at a loss as to what could have possibly happened to him all of a sudden. SO ..... on top of everything else going on ..... I now have a blind dog to deal with. I had a blind dog a few years ago. Maggie (another rat terrier we had here) went blind. She had seizures and was a sickly dog. She lived several months after going blind but then had a bought of several seizures one Sunday and passed away. I never realized how much i had gone out of my way to care for Maggie around the farm while she was here until she passed away. It was like a weight had lifted. She peed everywhere because she couldn't see where she was. She would wander out on the road if I wasn't watching her all the time. She would walk right off the porch not knowing where the end was so I had to put a rail up to try to keep her on so she wouldn't fall and break a bone. She would wander into the pastures with the donkeys and horses and not get out of the way when they would run around her. She got pounded a couple times before I could get her out. She kept running into things and wandering away from the house. I finally put a radio out on the porch and kept it running so she could hear noise and always be able to find the porch back again if she wandered away when I was outside. It was really nerve wracking trying to always watch out for her without keeping her penned up 24/7. I felt bad keeping her in a kennel all the time so I would let her out to walk around but then would get sidetracked and away she'd wander......I'm not looking forward to another one like that but I'll do it. I'll do whatever it takes to take care of Buddy. He's been a great companion for me all these years so I'm not going to abandon him at his time of need. I keep telling him that I won't leave him...... he'll be ok. Just stay with mom and everything will be ok. He follows my voice outside and sticks close to me. I am praying this is just temporary and Zach will come back and tell me it's just pressure on his optic nerve or something fixable. I really hope it isn't permanent. He's so scared right now.
Ok .... well, that's all the excitement happening around here right now. Lots more stories to write about but I think I'll close for now and tell you all about the Indian Wedding and our other adventures in another post. :o) Sorry no pics but they're all on the external drive. I sure hope they get that all back for me.......
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