Ups and Downs

 May has been a month of highs and lows. The lowest was the morning of the 20th when I went out to feed the horses and found Jessie Anne down, unable to rise, with her back legs on the wrong side of a pillar so when she tried to stand her legs crashed into the pillar. From the abrasions on her legs, she had tried many times and was now exhausted. All I could figure was she had rolled in the soft dirt in the open horse barn and landed in an impossible position. If we had rolled her as one does a cast horse away from the obstacle, we would have just turned her into the wall. Johnny went for ropes and we tried to figure out what to do. We decided if we could get her legs in front of the pillar, she might be able to get up. However that proved difficult. Eventually, between her thrashing when we tried and our rope pulling, we did get both legs in front of the pillar, but she was so tired that she could not stand when she tried. Her daughter was standing nearby. It occurred to me if her daughter went out into the field, Jessie Anne might get motivated to try again. So I opened the gate and Nightingale went out but stayed close to the gate, nibbling grass. That worked! Little by little, Jessie Anne thrashed her way in the direction of her daughter. When she had worked her way to where she was headed downhill, she was able to get her feet under herself and stand at last. She walked very unsteadily toward her daughter. I cleaned up her many abrasions and put healing Balm of Gilead on them. She spent the day standing near her daughter. Her cowbird friends kept her company and kept flies off her back.

Now she is all healed and had a wonderful time yesterday rearing and kicking and acting like a wild thing, happy to have muscles no longer sore.

Not long after that excitement, I went to Bob Straub Park on the coast to do my monthly beached (dead) bird survey for COASST. Happily, I found no dead birds, just this distant, handsome Semi-palmated Plover. 

 

Meanwhile, Johnny has been busy getting the haying equipment ready as it is nearly that time of year. Plus spending many days and hours clearing the ice storm destruction from around 91 year old neighbor Irv's house and clearing and leveling his long driveway.

 I have been doing Black Oystercatcher (BLOY) surveys for Portland Audubon, mainly from the cove at Road's End since the path to get there is so long (see A Long Hike). However it is not as long as the route I took at Cascade Head this week to look for nesting BLOY there. I did not find any and don't think they are nesting, perhaps because of the ever present and constantly hunting Bald Eagles in the area.

On the day of that long Cascade Head hike, Johnny woke me at 4 a.m. to see the total lunar eclipse. I complained, but it was worth getting up for. I tried for photos at every stage but before it was totally covered and totally red, it had dipped low enough to be partly obscured by fog. It was pretty while it lasted...

 

Yesterday, the day after the eclipse and the Cascade Head hike, I had a routine eye appointment that turned out not so routine. One of the lenses that replaced my cataract lens had turned cloudy, which, I have learned, is not uncommon. So the doc put me in their laser room and cleaned it off with his laser. The operation is not painful but I am now putting drops in four times a day... and noticing that the other eye now looks blurrier than the repaired eye. So I suspect it has clouded over, too. I will wait until after the Memorial Day weekend to see how I'm seeing by then and call the clinic if need be. 

Today, however, was a happy day as some seeds are up in the garden! I planted the whole tilled-by-Johnny garden area nearly two weeks ago, putting long onion stalks and leaves down the rows in hopes that gophers, which are having a field day in the garden, hate onions and leave my seeds alone. So far, it seems to be working. The gophers are still making their runs and mounds... but not in the rows with the onions! Meanwhile the seeds in the raised beds, safe from varmints, are doing very well and we have lots of spinach and chard to eat. Johnny made some new screened covers to replace the ones I've been using to keep the cats out. The cats seem to think our raised beds are all kitty litter boxes.

In goat news, we have gone from barely enough milk for customers to too much milk... I've made cheese and ice cream and custard. Then it occurred to me if I did not separate the four kids I've been separating every night except when I need the milk, we would not be swimming in extra milk.

 

So as of now, garden is growing, horses are all upright, haying equipment is ready, goats are giving plenty of milk, and I can see.