The Finleys

I cannot believe that it’s almost a year since my last blog. LIfe has been fairly busy and we are getting ready for spring. I can’t remember the last time I have been this ready. We had so much snow and cold weather this winter that it has everyone so ready for the warm weather. So in case anyone is still ready blogs … we are alive and well. Chris and Christine did an awesome job on our web page which has great pictures of all our horses and a gallery with a few family pictures. www.cachecreekranch.com

I know as I fill the pages up with Life in Spedden … the excitement and fast pace causes envy among my peers and relatives but hey someone has to live here.

Now that spring has finally come Dan and I are getting back to riding our horses. Now we can ride 4 of our 7 horses.  The middle of this month Genny and Houdini are going away for training and then in early July Legalas will be going.  When they come back I think we will sell Cinnamon, Zeke and Sassy. Lately it seems we take Jag because he is such a joy to ride.  He stands until you get up on him and for me that is a real bonus.  I don’t climb on as fast as I used to! And then we’ve been taking Zeke or Buddy (Steve’s horse)

On Friday we went for a ride and decided to take Cinnamon because we havn’t rode her since last fall. I was a little unsure of the outcome but she saddled up fine and being the loving wife that I am… I felt it would be best if Dan got on first … (just in case) Anyway I  rode Jag to start and Dan rode Cinnamom. She was a little ansi but more or lest settled in to the ride.  Since it was her first ride we decided to confine her to the road allowance and do the block around the section where we live.  When we got down the road a mile Dan and I switched places and I was now riding Cinnamom.  She wanted to run but we decided to take it slow the first time around.

Around our place there is a fair amount of bush and the road that goes north on the east side of the section is pretty quiet except on Wednesdays and Sundays when the dump is open.  We live about 3 miles from the dump.  So we decided to take this road as it would be quiet and we shouldn’t run into any problems.

We’d gone about a mile from home when we come up over a hill and I saw a black dog come out of the bush.  Only it was kinda big for a black dog.  Oh yes you got it … a bear.   So we stopped and kinda waited to see what direction the bear was going to take when we looked in the field across the road and saw her two cubs scratching at a tree.  At that point Dan and I kind of decided that we should maybe head back in the opposite direction.  Of course at about the same time we turned the horses they got a whiff of the bears and they had no problem turning around.  We kept them at a walk as best we could and Jag listened quite well but Cinamon was going home and none to happy about taking it slow.  It kind of gives you a scary feeling with a mama bear behind you and horse that would just as soon leave you than carry you.  We have a trail through the woods that cuts accross the end of one quarter that is quite open so we thought to take that … Cinnamon wanted no part of this trail .. I’m not sure if she felt confined or what but she was one unhappy camper.  She can back up as fast as she can run and when she gets excited and you try and hold her back … she goes backward in a semi circle until she is backing up in the direction she wants to go.  And if that dosn’t work she’ll back you up into a tree and hope to brush you off.  What she hasn’t figured out yet is that her butt hits the tree first! Well she tried rearing up a few times and was getting quite agiated when I decided that I would be safer on foot … Bear and all.

So I did get off and walk through that part of the woods but I was kind of looking over my shoulder expecting to see Mama bear rambling my way. Black bears are usually more afraid of you but who can predict what a Mama bear will do. We did survive.

Today being Sunday I went to the dump to get rid of my household garbage and catch up on all the gossip.  Oh yes … Life in Spedden includes Sunday at the dump! The guy who runs the place is quite nice and knows quite abit about the area so I told him about the Mama bear and two cubs.  Oh yes he says … she holes up in the old barn on that road.  So it is very reasurring to know that we have a mama bear that lives about 3/4′s of a mile from us.  makes us wonder is we still want to plant all those Saskatoon trees!

I really don’t think that normal, un-educated in the medical field farmers should be allowed to give shots and such to their animals ….

Friday we decided to take Jaguar to the vet and have him gelded … After getting him back from the trainers it was pretty obvious that Jag is not a performance horse. He has a very quiet disposition and in fact will make a awesome children’s horse. So off to the vet we decided to go.

Being gelded is a fairly normal procedure usually performed at a early age and still normal for older horses (you just need bigger clamps:) We had noticed that Jag had had a bit of a cold and informed the vet. It wasn’t a big deal she just suggested we perhaps give him a shot of penicillian twice a day for a couple days to ward off any infections etc.

Well Saturday I realized that the penicillian we had in the fridge was expired so Sunday I slipped into town and picked up a new batch. Dan was away at work but I’d given lots of needles before so no sweat.

I am sure we have all realized by now that I am leading up to a not so normal procedure. The vet had said to give him 25cc twice a day which is a fairly large dose. Well I did I inserted the needle no problem and injected the drug. Pulled it out and rubbed the spot and that is when all H!!!! broke loose . He went totally bezerk … started prancing and rearing and falling over and getting up and snorting and falling over some more and basically going balistic … My head is racing … oh my goodness what did I give him … he’s going to die on me … what have I done … what should I do … what can I do …

I honestly expected that he would give a few more jumps and die … It was the one of worst 2 minutes of my life … Well he didn’t die … Thank God for that. It took him about 5 more minutes to settle down and go back to eating … He started licking his lips like he was thirsty so I ran and got him a pail of water. When I came back though he really didn’t want to have anything to do with me … Not that I blamed him. But I left the water and then went to call the vet … She’s very good and knows how to handle people as well as animals.. I find out that since this was Jag’s 3rd shot in the last little while that it most likely wasn’t an allergic reation but it could be so best not give him any more penicillian. What she thinks happened is that I got into the blood stream and fed him intervenously. The penicillian is to be shaken and mixed well before injected and I may not have mixed it properly and he got a little bit more of part A than part B. But I am not a vet … I do not know if I stopped mixing it early … I am not sure if I got into his blood stream because their was a little blood when I pulled the needle out but not a lot … All I know is that I never want to go through that experience twice.

I went back out to Jag and I hung around him for quite a bit afterwards because I wanted to pet him and hopefully win back some of his love … He would allow me to touch his nose but he was constantly trying to back away from me … He knows that I did it too him and I don’t think he understands that I didn’t know that he would get an reation from what I did.

Anyway just a typical day in our LIfe in Spedden

Wow … We have had such nice weather … A whole 3 days of it. Yesterday I stayed home from work to get caught up on my books ( so I guess I stayed home to work) and took a stroll outside. When we moved here in November there was no snow on the ground but there was no promise of green things to come. Yesterday the trees were getting small buds on some of them … I could look and see my new garden area and try to figure out what perennials would be coming up. Dan was with me at the time and we guessed at a lot of them. So as soon as the florwers start to bloom Guess what I can show you pictures.

Alex, the dog that came to the place, is letting me pet him more and more but after 5 months Dan has still not been able to touch him. I told him all he had to do was feed him everyday and he’d turn real quick. When we moved here we brought home 3 barn cats … surprise the only place they don’t stay is in the barn!!! Well the mama cat broke her leg somehow so we decided to put a splint on her … I’m still not sure why she bit me … I was only holding her Dan was the one trying to bandage her up. Anyway we got her all pretty … used some nice pretty blue vet wrap and were quite proud of our veterinairian skills … Only things is 1/2 hour later we noticed the pretty blue bandage on the ground and no cat to be found. …

Otherthan that we are hoping to go riding soon … I’m a little nervous about that as we havn’t had time to ride our horses last winter so they could be a little skittish. Cinnamon in perfect appaloosa tradition who at 5 years of age was a nice dark brown with spotted blanket decided this year she wanted to go a light almost white with spots so I guess it will be just like riding a new horse

Talk to you later

Well here I am blogging …. I must be moving up in the world … doing something I’ve never done before … Well the bla bla bla part of blogging I’m quite good at ..

Anyway I want to add this to Life in Spedden … so for those of you who don’t know Dan and I moved to Spedded in early November… We can now watch our horses run about in the wide open space and get to know our dog that came with the place …. His name is Alex

Alex dosn’t like to socialize in close contact so we watch each other from afar.

I tell you more later in the continuing saga of Life in Spedden …. For right now I want to see if I can post this blog