Life has been very complicated lately....not leaving much time to do much more than poke my nose in here once in a while. My horse & I have mostly recovered from our fall.....luckily the shoulder wasn't hurt as bad as it seemed.....& my horse is finally feeling so good that he is raring to go. Our chiropractor was out last week to put my horse & me back into place after the fall too. I thought the hurts were gone until he hit some sore spots that were hiding. Took several days & a lot of Motrin to get through that for me & my horse has had his share of bute (motrin for horses).

All of my critters seem to require quite a bit of my time daily.....or it is just that I give them time daily......makes so much difference in how they relate to me. I have added some photos to the gallery under eskielover. There are a couple of my filly's 1st birthday....she has graduated to being a yearling. The first is the birthday kiss.....then sniffing her carrot cake.....then sticking her nose into the cake. Just like a 1 year old, she smeared frosting all over herself. I also added some photos of my puppy. He is now 7 weeks old & soooo tiny. I took him out to the ranch today for my trainer to see. She was the breeder of several of my eskies. She told me that toy eskies that have the structure he does go for $1000. The other possibility (which I perfer) is to get back into showing him & there is quite a need for toy stud dogs. I love the photos of him......he has so much fun sleeping with my stuffed animals in my room. His big brother is teaching him how to be a doggie....& bops the puppy on the nose when he gets out of line. I had to stop the nursing early due to the fact that mommy's milk seems to indicate a possibility of mastitis.....not healthy for the puppy & just another thing for me to have to take care of.....either antibiotics &/or spaying.

We had fun on halloween...I dressed up in part of my witch costume & put a witchy hat on the puppy & took him to the door to give out candy. Boy did the puppy get attention from all the kids & the parents even came up to the door to check him out. I also bought a really cute witchy hat for my filly.....which I also stuck in my photos here.

It has been hard during the time I wasn't able to ride....it gave my mind too much time to let other things into it & was amazed how quickly flashbacks, memories, & depression could sneek back in. I have so much to do & when I slip into this state.....it seems like nothing gets done.....I end up too tired to do anything but don't want to sleep because of the nightmares. I am trying to deal with these things with my psychologist....but don't seem to be getting very far. At least I know that everyone is in agreement as to it being PTSD that I am dealing with. At first everyone seemed to look at the situation as the fact that the RN just ripped off my Mother.....but then when the other things happened.....it became more obvious to both my pdoc & psychologist that it is PTSD.

To add to my the things I am dealing with, one of the lady's at the ranch had bought a very old horse, figuring that her daughter could walk it around a few times a week. Unfortunately, the horse has been going down hill over the last year. First it was one thing, then another then another. There were many times when the owner couldn't be there & I would take care of the old lady including giving her suringes full of medicines. I was always checking on the horse when I went out there. This horse was also the horse that took over being a mother to one of my trainers foals when the Mare died from a prolapsed uturas during the birth. This older mare even produced some amount of milk for the foal even though it wasn't hers......she was really amazing. It was really sad to watch her go down hill & then she finally quit eating. They arrainged to have the vet come out last Wednesday night & put her to sleep. I have been around many of my critters that have died......but I don't think it is something I will ever get used to. I was with them through it & even though we knew it was the right thing to do......it was sad to watch the end of life come to her. I dearly love our vet. He is so kind & thoughtful in dealing with things like this. The reason he went into large animal treatment was because of the fact that he hates to put down animals & he knew that small animal vets to it almost every day & he couldn't do that. We knew that she was ready to die because the vet didn't even get in all the drug to put her to sleep before she went down. I must say, I still end up crying everytime I think about it......wiping the tears away.

I hope things will settle down now.......I know I have to keep my mind off of replaying last year.....trying to keep busy with things that in no way take me back to then. I am thinking about taking courses at one of the community colleges on equine science......planning on taking as many courses as I can before I end up with my own ranch & need to know all those things. I am looking forward to learning as much as I can beyond my daily training that I get at the ranch. It is taking much time to even look into places to move to.....let alone packing up the houses. My frustration level is building daily....which I am sure doesn't help. For some reason, it feels like there is a constant war going on inside of me....to keep going....concentrate on your critters.....& a little bit each day.....then feeling complete exhaustion where all I want to do is sleep.

I have a lot of work to do with photos....putting together my fillys scrapbook, the wedding scrapbook for my horse trainer, & organizing my family photos for getting together with the wife of (I think it is) my 3rd cousin. It was great that she called me out of the blue.....never met her before & hadn't seen her husband since we were kids in grade school. It is great because we are getting this part of the family together now....it was something I thought about when my mother died was that it was going to be the end of family getting together.....now we are carrying on a bit of that ourselves. It does feel good to know that there is family out there that won't be lost now that the older generations are gone.

Sorry for the rambling......just a bit of what has been going on here. The best part of my life will always be my animals no matter what.....they are always here for me & me for them.

Debbie