Carrie and Grandma left Friday to visit Nibs in Charleston. That meant I had to run the barn by myself.
Carrie left very specific instructions. I took pictures as reminders.
Ernie was the biggest change from S.O.P. He required a special concoction 3 times a day that had to mixed to the perfect warm, green, diarrhea-stew.
So of course Friday morning something went wrong with Carrie watching. I picked up a jug by the pump and it came right off and all over me.
Looked like I had peed my pants!
Followed by a cat peeing down the drain...but missing. I had to use the hose.
I thought it was funny, but my wife who was already anxious had to be coaxed to laugh about it all.
The rest went as normal, because I do it all the time. I took pictures at every feeding over the weekend to give Carrie updates to put to rest any unease she might have.
Ernie's meals were filled with healthy goodness at the perfect diarrhea consistency. I improved considerably at pouring the molasses and turning the jar to prevent a mess after my first attempts.
And I spent a lot of time in the barn. There was the normal routine plus keeping Ernie comfortable on stall rest. Carrie wanted me to dump and refill his water bucket anew at least once a day.
And she wanted his hay bag superfull at all times. Any hay that he didn't eat after a few feedings was to be transferred to Eddy or Maddy, so that it could be replaced with fresher forage.
Since we were coming off the colic scare I cataloged poops, too.
And this started on a normal work day. It was the 3rd Friday of the month, so I had office hours, sophomore seminar, faculty, and geometry meetings. I attended the staff meeting on my phone while standing in the driveway waiting for Shane's school bus to drop off supplies.
Without Carrie and Shane around I worked. A lot. The pets weren't happy I was spending so much time in the bedroom.
I expected Loki to linger by the door. I didn't expect both cats to hop on me the moment I sat on the couch! They clearly missed Carrie.
And yes, Loki followed wherever I went.
When I wasn't working on school work, I came out of the bedroom to work on the house or the barn. I wanted Carrie and Shane to come home to a house in order. I didn't count housework hours, but I spent 8 hours in the barn over the weekend. I had to text Carrie for the secret recipe for the supplement cups Friday evening.
And then I had to cover them up from the cats to play barn manager and check in with whoever dropped by.
I didn't finish them until much later on, but I texted Carrie a picture as confirmation I did it (With Happy overseeing my work as a bonus).
There was too much to be done to be lonely or bored. There was only one meal's worth of gyoza left in the bag, so I cooked that and rice for dinner.
My shadow supervised. He wanted to lay at my feet between me and the stove.
There was some minor excitement and smoke when I forgot to turn off the stovetop, but without anyone else there it was 10 seconds of a distraction and a picture reminder.
And so the days went. I did laundry, dishes, cleaning, grading, and emails. I had the leftover gyoza and rice for lunch and didn't do anything Shane would consider fun!
And I checked on horses. Lots of horses...
...and lots of horse poop (Cataloged!).
Things go much faster when there's two people working on it. Carrie's already decided we're not going to order the bales with lambs-quarter in them next year. The upfront cost reduction was nice, but the cost in time to clean up on the backend has been prohibitive.
Loki enjoys 'helping,' but the constant wheel biting only slows me down!
We've been dumping the fouled shavings and poop from the stall manually to prevent overwhelming the bridle trail with crap. The horses are all locked in the dry lots, so there's much more poop to shovel than usual...and it'll be like that for a couple of months! I'll mention that in a later update.
I thought I had a small window for a break on Saturday when Heidi arrived. She's recovering well from her stroke and a fiercely independent...which worries Carrie.
Heidi has been working on rebuilding her muscle strength to mount and dismount independently, but she hadn't done it yet.
So Loki and I went outside to keep her company. I'm sure she knew why I was around, but neither of us addressed it directly. We chatted some as she rode around and I spent the next hour weeding the arena.
Loki hid behind me every time Eddy turned our way!
Heidi asked me to come over while she dismounted. I barely got there in time, but I wasn't needed. She was able to do is solo. "I'm back!" Heidi said.
And she did come back and ride on Sunday while I was at Costco. I was gone for less than two hours when she snuck in. She dismounted before I was done unloading groceries and out the back door! Nothing happened, but I'd prefer someone to be on property whenever an octogenarian hops on a horse (and if I feel that way, guess how strongly Carrie feels about it!).
The only other time I left the house was on Saturday night. I was able to organize a small get together with my book club in town. I let Laura know when I would be gone in case she wanted to time her Ernie visit then, but they came earlier in the day.
When I got back, I had to do horse chores in the dark.
The horse chores were a mixed blessing. On one hand, I had a good opportunity to show Carrie how much I loved her and they kept me too busy to be bored.
On the other, I probably could have caught up on the blog instead of being two weeks behind!
I felt great with how productive the weekend was by the time it was over. I'd done almost everything I'd set out to do. Sunday morning, I took Loki out to relive himself and stood outside a little longer thinking about how many things I had to be grateful for. I enjoyed having some quiet time, but I was happy when Shane, Carrie, and Grandma pulled up Sunday night.
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