Well, this is my first time online in several days because one of my close friends was visiting for the past week and went home late last night. Therefore, I didn't go online while she was here. Too busy!

Additionally, I have been working my butt off at the Cat Clinic. I have been working extra shifts (a couple co-workers have been gone lately) and it's finally catching up with me, but at least I get this weekend off. That should help a lot!

Besides work, the animals have been keeping me busy as well. We are finally done medicating the rescue foals twice a day. Now we just have to change the bandage and clean Romy's wound every night. It is looking SO much better, though, and she's walking great on that leg (has been for days now). We have taken some pictures of it because we want to compare them as the wound heals. No proud flesh so far, which is great, but it could still develop. Romy is getting a lot easier to catch and handle, but she is still suspicious of humans. Firefly, on the other hand, is GREAT with us now! She can be jumpy sometimes, but she lets us walk right up to her and pet her (she loves being pet) and she also is a HUGE pest while we doctor Romy. Haha. Such a cutie! Firefly has really come around.. She is shedding off her nasty foal fur (I call it nasty because her coat was all dull, thick, and wormy-looking when we got her) right now and it looks like she will be a gorgeous chestnut color! Her nasal discharge is gone and I haven't heard her cough in a few days, so her respiratory virus is either gone or close to it! Yippee! Romy has a stuffy nose still, but I think we just need to clean it out and it will be good. Haven't seen/heard her cough in a few days either.

I told my mom I want some money to build a shelter and the foal pasture for my birthday present (my birthday is July 29th), so soon we will be getting to work on the nice new pasture for the three fillies! Of course Remedy will not be joining Firefly and Andromeda until she is weaned (a couple months from now).

Speaking of Remedy.. She gave me a scare last Friday on her 6 week old mark. I came home from work and found that she was acting lethargic, drinking a TON of water, not nursing, and she had watery diarrhea. I called me vet immediately and she had me give Remedy electrolytes and probios and those seemed to work really fast on her. I think it was a mixture of dehydration and Serenity (her dam) being in heat at the time. It has been so hot here lately.. Gotta love Oklahoma in the summer. Anyway, also gave her some Banamine as my vet recommended. Almost hauled her to the vet hospital because of the diarrhea and fever, but like I said, she got better after we treated her. Her fever went away and after she passed some gas, she seemed to be good as far as diarrhea went. She is doing so much better now, but she still isn't entirely back to normal in my opinion. She hasn't been as active as usual, but she has been nursing great since Friday night, eating hay and grain, drinking plenty of water, and acting curious about everything like normal. Just not running, bucking, and rearing like she likes to do. That filly means so much to me so if I have any more causes for concern in her, I will call my vet out here.

Ash's kitten is getting big! But he was a little chubster right when he was born. Haha. He's so adorable. Our friend who stayed with us for the past week is going to move in with us (my boyfriend and me) very soon and I had told her when we found out Ash was pregnant that she could have one of her kittens if she wanted. Well, she still wants Ash's kitten, so she gets to have him for herself! I'm glad he will be living with me still, though. She renamed him "McKay" after her favorite character on Stargate Atlantis.

Anyway, that's the latest on the animals. I will add some more pictures later.

Had the vet out again this morning to look at Andromeda (bay filly) in particular. She injured herself two nights ago on her left hind hock and it looks pretty bad. Anyway, we had cleaned it and wrapped it Sunday night, but my vet cleaned it again this morning with some Chlorhexidine solution, then applied gauze with Nolvasan ointment and bandaged over the gauze. She also cleaned and treated her butt gash, which is looking so much better! But anyway, we now need to give Andromeda banamine for pain and swelling every morning and change her bandage, cold water hose the wound, clean it out, etc. every morning as well. Additionally, we have both fillies on Albuterol twice a day for their coughing/congestion. Hopefully it all helps! I can't believe Romy injured herself in their pen. On a PANEL nonetheless. I can't help but feel it is my fault, but there's no use blaming myself now. At least we got the vet out and are treating it. Hoping no proud flesh develops. Thankfully the wound wasn't deep, and also thankfully she got her tetanus antitoxin last week. Oh, both fillies got some more Equistem + B12 this morning.

Aside from that, both fillies were de-wormed over the weekend with Equimax (so was my 5 week old filly Remedy) and Firefly and Romy are becoming easier to catch, handle, and approach. They seem to be learning to trust me and I think they like being pet. I know where Firefly's itchy spot is and I know Romy is ok with me if she can sniff my head and gets pet on the muzzle first. They are both such curious fillies!

Pat and I are going to work on getting a new shelter put up for them asap. I can't wait until our new pasture is up either! It will be SO nice. Lots of grass and a bigger area for the fillies. It will be the "weaning" pen when weaning time comes for Remedy. She will be weaned with Firefly and Romy. Then Goldie and Serenity can be together in the big pasture.

Some exciting news - - - Our rescue cat Ash (rescued May 10th) finally had her kitten on Sunday at about 8:20 a.m.!!!!! He is a healthy (as far as I can tell) boy and he looks like a miniature Ash! He is gray and white like Ash, and has a tiger striped tail and white paws like mama, but has a white face unlike Ash. I was hoping she would have two kittens, but I'm just happy she had a live kitten and he doesn't appear to have brain damage from her getting vaccinated with the live FVRCP vaccine in May. I will put a pic of him up soon. I need to introduce all my pets one of these days. We have too many right now, but our foster cat will be getting adopted out soon and I'm looking for a new home for my rabbit.

That puts me up to five horses, which seems crazy, but I am going to do all I can to make it work.

Anyway, first I will share the exciting news that Serenity foaled at 6 a.m. May 30th!!!! She had a gorgeous solid sorrel filly with a blaze and three stockings! I named her "Remedy" as planned and she was healthy and happy and is five weeks old now as of yesterday! Her vet check at one day old went VERY well and I haven't had a single problem with her so far *knocks on wood*. Serenity was a very protective mama the first day or two post-foaling, but was then not feeling threatened by Pat and I messing with her and Remedy and has been a perfect mom since! I love Remedy more than I can say. She is the most precious foal in the world to me! She is perfect in every way. BEAUTIFUL, has a GREAT personality (she has loved being handled since day 1! I can touch her all over, pick up all four feet, open her mouth, catch her, etc.), and great build and conformation. I couldn't ask for a better foal out of Serenity! Remedy has brought so much joy to my life. I de-wormed her for the first time today and she took it like a pro as I knew she would. :) Ha, she LOVES attention. And she loves having her butt itched. I can't say a single negative thing about her. It's also really cute how well she gets along with our puppy, Maverick. They play with each other all the time! Oh, and I did see the end of Remedy's birth. I got to remove the amniotic sac from around her body and towel dry her.

As for the other two foals.. They are orphan foal rescues. Pat and I rescued them on Wednesday (July 2nd) from a nearby feedlot/bucking horse ranch called JS Ranch. One of them is a chestnut Haflinger/QH looking filly we named "Firefly." She was guessed to be 3 months old (by my vet). She has a huge blaze face and is SO adorable. She has such a long mane, tail, and forelock and they are thick and curly like a pony's! I have a soft spot for her. The other foal is a bay grade Quarter Horse or Quarter Horse/Appaloosa filly we named "Andromeda" aka "Romy." She is guessed to be 6 weeks old or so (way too young for weaning, the poor thing). She has a star and three socks and is very flashy! Unfortunately they have both had no prior handling besides being manhandled at the feedlot, so they are scared of human contact right now, but we are making progress. They were both wormy when they came to me so I de-wormed Firefly today and tried to catch Romy to de-worm her, too, but no luck. Will try again tomorrow. They both got their tetanus antitoxins and also some Equistem (immunity booster) when the vet came out. Oh, and no one has hernias (including Miss Remedy), so that's a relief! Anyway, these two will be a huge project for Pat and I, but I am looking forward to it. I bet anything they will be awesome little horses one of these days and I want to give them a chance to shine and be loved and well cared for! They deserve it!

Anyway, the big horses (Goldie and Serenity) are doing great, too! Serenity looks SO much better than when I got her and she had rain scald, a dull coat, matte in her tail, long and chipped hooves, skinny, etc.. She is now sleek and shiny, rain scald free, at a nice healthy weight, matte-free, and up-to-date on farrier and vet! We started riding her again 3 weeks after she foaled. She has proven to be a GREAT riding horse. We love Serenity! She just needs work on picking up her hooves and trailer loading. Goldie girl has been super when ridden, too. I love that horse so much. She is getting too fat this spring/summer, though, so we need to cut back on grain on her.

Firefly

Romy

Remedy

Serenity

Goldie

A week ago (April 27), my boyfriend and I drove to Missouri to pick up our new horse; her name used to be Sugar but I renamed her Serenity. It took us a while to load her into my 2H bumper pull, but once she was in, she hauled great. She has settled in so nicely to my pasture! I originally was going to board her at a local stable until she foals because 1)I didn't have an area to separate her and Goldie and 2)I was planning on moving June 1st. Well.. My boyfriend and I have decided to stick this house out through the end of its lease in December. So we are not moving. And I came up with a way to separate the horses from each other. We just bought panels yesterday and have started making a "foaling pen" for Serenity. It includes the lean-to so she has shelter, and then has four more panels to make it a bigger area. I am only going to separate the mares at night when Serenity is more likely to foal. I want her to get exercise and have grass to munch on throughout the day AND have a buddy to hang out with. Goldie just LOVES Serenity. They are always together and they hit it off from the start. Goldie must know Serenity is pregnant because she is very protective of her. She freaks out if I take Serenity away from her.

The weather has been so nice lately that I have let the mares graze in the dog yard at our house because the grass has gotten tall and we want to postpone using a lawn mower until we really need to. The girls do a fine job mowing the yard anyway!

I do have one big issue I need to resolve with Serenity asap, though. She has threatened to kick me on a daily basis and even made contact with my hand once. She really doesn't like having her back end messed with, yet she is ok with me touching her udder. I don't get it. Her foal has been very active, though. Serenity has also started a nice bag, so foaling time is drawing nearer! I ordered my foaling kit off ebay a couple days ago so it will arrive this coming week. That will mean I am all set for her to foal with the foaling area ready and the foaling kit here.

I have a new pet I adopted from PETCO over a week ago.. It's a Syrian (Teddybear) hamster I call "Badger." He's adorable - longhaired like my old hamster, Marvin, and he is really handleable! I missed having Syrian hamsters and couldn't resist him since he is a Marvin look-alike.

I now just have two jobs. My travel job with EF College Break and my job as a feline nurse at the Cat Clinic! I actually got "dismissed" from my internship with 30 hours left to go on Friday. But I feel relieved because I was really unhappy with the internship. My heart wasn't in it and it really stressed me out.

This semester didn't quite go as planned, but at least I can put it behind me now that it is over! I am out of school until June when my summer classes start. I am taking a history class online and a class called Legal and Regulatory Business Law on campus.

I am so looking forward to the foal being born! This should be a good month for its arrival.

Pictured below are Serenity (left) and Goldie (right)

I know I have been MIA for a long time now, but I am finally finding some time and energy (and remembering, for that matter) to come on here and post a new blog update.

Things that have changed in the past three months:

1. Calliope and Twister went to their new homes at the end of December. You may recall my last blog entry about trading Twister, my 2006 black solid APHA gelding, for Bucky, a 1996 buckskin NSH gelding. Twister's new owners just love him!!!!! They are riding him now and he is doing awesome. He has even gone on trail rides! I'm so glad they love him so much. He deserves a truly wonderful home. I think about him often. I know I will visit him in Illinois one of these days and ride him for the first time.. Bucky is a GREAT horse, a lot of fun to be around and all, but he was always too hyped up with my boyfriend and sweated so easily because of it. My boyfriend and I have also realized we want to get another AQHA-registered horse so we start team penning and sorting this year and hopefully hit future AQHA team penning/sorting events along with open events. Bucky is more of an endurance horse. We ended up selling him to a great Horsecity friend (Halo's mom on the bulletin boards) on March 16. He is working out GREAT for her and her family so far! I know he went to a super home. I found I had a hard time bonding with Bucky up until maybe a week before he went to his new home (when I knew we were going to find him a new home). I think it was because I really missed my boys (Calliope and Twister) and didn't feel a connection with Bucky. But then the last week we had him, he really showed me he trusted me and wanted to bond with me. It was amazing.. I am happy I will get to see him and ride him in the future when I meet up with his new owners!

Like I said on my last blog, Calliope went to his new home in Broken Arrow, OK, on December 30th. I had been so worried that I was making a bad decision about selling him to the people who he was going to, but when I arrived at their property with Calliope in the trailer and got to spend time getting to know the new owners and see the 14 year old daughter ride him, and view their facilities, I knew he was going to the best home!! They can not only afford to take care of him even if he, heaven forbid, had an accident or got sick, but they have amazing facilities (two round pens, a couple outdoor arenas, an indoor arena, 2-3 barns, and a nice big pasture with a pond! Calliope has it MADE. And they plan to get up to four horses eventually, but wanted to work with Calliope individually for a few months at least. The 14 year old daughter, Victoria, is a beginner rider but she has been taking riding lessons for a year at least and is also taking them on Calliope now. She wants to do 4-H shows with him, which is awesome because he LOVES doing those! She gets to bond with him and work with him a lot more than I got to, so I know that's perfect for Calliope. I did visit Calliope about a month after I sold him, and he was looking awesome and I got to ride him!!!! He seemed so happy there, so I was thrilled. I really got lucky in finding my boys such wonderful homes. It puts my mind at ease knowing Calliope, Twister, and Bucky are probably ALL in their forever homes. And Calliope and Twister's new owners know that I would consider buying them back if they couldn't keep them for some reason.

2. At the beginning of February, Pat and I moved to a new house. I thought it was the right thing to do because my roommate situation was bothering me at my other house (the roommate who owns the house was really bothering me.. She became really stuck up and not fun to be around.. I felt like I could never have friends over and like I had no control over anything done at the house.). We now live maybe a 10 minute drive from town (or less than that), but it's like 5-6 miles from town. We are out in the country on dirt roads and all. My car is never clean anymore, in other words LOL! We have a 2 bedroom, 1 bath home and rent is very affordable. Our house (it's a rental) is on three acres and a lot of it is fenced for horses and livestock. The pasture has a loafing shed for shelter as well. Things were going pretty well in the new house until we found out our landlord has not been very easy to work with on getting things done on the house. You see, our stove runs off propane and only one of the burners starts just by turning the burner on and two of the other burners have to be started with a match, whereas one will not work at all. And our oven doesn't start until you take it apart and light it with a match AND it doesn't go to the temperature you set it at. It goes way above it (Like 200+ degrees higher!). So we basically haven't been able to cook or bake much since living there.. :( Our landlord knew about this problem since the day we moved in and promised he would either get it fixed or get us a new stove. He FINALLY delivered a working stove (looks in worse condition than the one we had, but supposedly it works..) yesterday, but it is not hooked up yet. And we moved in Feb. 8th or 9th, so this is like 2 months after we move in that we finally get a proper working stove! And if that isn't enough.. Our windows and doors have horrible seals so our heat escapes the house easily and I'm sure bugs and flies will have no problem getting in and the heat can escape to the attic because the attic cover (can't remember what you call it) is broken and has a big hole in it. Oh, then there's the fact that we discovered our propane tank was LEAKING the day we moved in. Landlord was supposed to get the propane company to fix it, but never did. We tried getting them out to our place, and they never call us back or attempt to help us. Ugh.. So we spent a lot of money for propane and it should have lasted us two months at least, but only lasted a month. We haven't even had luck getting the propane people out to refill it so life has been very hard lately. I think I will try a new propane company tomorrow or Tuesday. Grr.. I'm sure there are plenty of other problems with the house that I didn't say anything about. Whatever.. The only GOOD thing about the house is that I can keep my horse there and have house pets without paying a deposit.

2. The day I sold Bucky, I ended up bringing home Ivette's (Bucky's new owner) 23 year old fleabitten gray registered Arabian mare, Casey, on trial. The deal was that if I decided I wanted to keep Casey, I would get Casey and Ivette wouldn't have to pay full price for Bucky. Well.. Casey is a very sweet mare, but again.. She wasn't the right horse for my boyfriend to ride and she wasn't exactly what I like in a riding horse either. She could also be hard to catch, but she got really good about letting me catch her once I learned her tricks. I kept her for almost three weeks before I took her to her new home with ANOTHER Horsecity bulletin board member, elfinbien AKA Kathleen. Kathleen goes to the same college as me and has been looking for a riding horse since her mare had to be put down in December (I think?). She really loved Casey instantly when she met her (of course Ivette was the one who advertised Casey on Horsecity and decided Casey could go to Kathleen) and she wants to do dressage with Casey, which is great because Casey used to do dressage with the owners who owned her before Ivette. I delivered Casey to Kathleen just two days ago (Friday) and like Bucky, Casey really became sweet toward me about the last week of having her in my care. I'm glad things worked out well with Casey going to a great home and Kathleen having a new riding companion!

3. Well.. With Bucky being sold and Casey recently going to her new home, that leaves Goldie alone in the pasture. But not for too long! Pat and I looked at a 12 year old sorrel AQHA mare for sale in Missouri yesterday. We LOVED everything about her! She is really a good lookin' gal and she is due to foal May 29 to a black overo APHA stallion. She is definitely the horse we have been waiting for! We both rode her and she rode great, despite being heavily pregnant. Now, we didn't ride her hard or long, but we took her through her paces and turned, stopped, backed, etc. She's a gem! We are for sure buying her and will bring her home at the very beginning of May! We are really excited about her and her upcoming foal! :) I am going to board her at a stable a couple miles from me until she foals, though, because my pasture is not suitable for a foaling mare, I can't separate her from Goldie at my place, AND we are moving on or around June 1st if all goes well..

4. Speaking of moving.. We found our DREAM home! It's also a rental house and is SE of town. It takes about the same amount of time to drive there as to our current house (10-15 minutes). It is a 4 bedroom, 2 bath doublewide home on 17 acres. It doesn't even LOOK like a doublewide. It has a nice permanent foundation and all! It has two carports (each can fit two cars), a screened-in porch and patio, a laundry room, HUGE kitchen with all appliances included, dining room, large living room, nice master bedroom with a SWEET master bathroom (has a double sink and a triangle spa tub plus walk in shower!) and three smaller bedrooms and another full bathroom. I really like that there is an entry gate to the house, too, so I could let the horses graze around the yard if we close it. We will also have two separate pastures (but will only use one of them) and a large barn in the bigger pasture. The barn definitely needs some work, but it's ok for the horses to run into a certain part of it for shelter. There are also some shade trees for shelter in parts of the pasture, so that's nice as well. The landlords live right next door and seem like very nice people! Pat and I both absolutely love everything about the house and property! It will be so perfect for us and our animals. The landlords said we get first dibs on the house. My close friend Amanda from Arizona (in some of the pictures in my photo album here) is going to live with us, too, and we will hopefully have a fourth roommate, too! It's affordable even with three roomies, though.

5. Well, our pet situation has changed a bit, too. At our previous house, our only house pets were Simon (my white cat) and Pat's hedgehog. Now we have Simon, Polka (a 1 year old female gray and orange tabby cat I adopted from the kitten rescue I volunteer at!), Rees (a 2 year old Corgi/Beagle mix neutered male dog I adopted from a Corgi rescue in February), Maverick (a 8-9 week old Husky mix male puppy we got for free at Wal mart - some guy was giving free puppies away in the parking lot.. We fell in love with little Mav! We got him March 15!), Goose (black rabbit with two white paws and a white patch on his head. think it is a male. We got him/her from Atwood's a week ago), the hedgehog, and also a toad we rescued and named Trevor. We are going to find the hedgehog a new home because we never do anything with her, but other than that we are happy with all of our pets!

6. I currently have three jobs - one of which has not started yet. I ended the equine research park job at the beginning of February when the study ended. I LOVED that job even though it required some very early morning hours. I am still working for EF College Break and started an internship with Oklahoma AgrAbility and the Sun Grant project in January. I am not very happy with my internship and have found I don't know that I want to have a full-time agricultural communications-related job after graduating in December. I am actually considering being a vet tech. At least until I figure out what is best for me. Which is why I am REALLY excited to say that I got a part-time job as a feline nurse at the local Cat Clinic! I am really excited about starting there next Monday! I had interviewed with them in the fall for their receptionist position (they didn't have any nurse jobs open then, which was a bummer), and I didn't get that job (which is good) but I was so happy when I saw they were hiring two part-time feline nurses!! My friend from school, Callie, works there and is graduating in May so I am technically replacing her, but I get to work with her during training and maybe a little after so that will be awesome! I am only going to continue my internship until I have 100 hours (that's what I need to make it one credit hour).

7. I have been sick A LOT lately and I need to go to the doctor tomorrow. My boyfriend thinks I have appendicitis or something like that. I have had stomach pains for the past three weeks, but it usually is bearable, so I wasn't too concerned. Until now..

Wow, sorry for the lonnnnnng update! That's not even half of it, either. Hopefully I can update more regularly again... Thanks for reading if you did! I am posting a picture of Goldie from March 16 when we hauled her and Bucky to Broken Arrow to ride at an arena with our friends.