Goodbye, Chester

21.365 1/21/2022

We said goodbye to Chester today. 

Chester was the first horse Carus bought. He was the first horse we owned, and while I don't think he'll be the last, that first spot is pretty special. He was pretty special.  

He helped Carus end her time in 4H on high notes. They won a dressage medal together! And came VERY close to getting Dad Potter. The judge might have given that last point if she knew it was their last shot at it - might not have, but I'd like to think she would have. It was just that close. 

After Carus finished 4H, I took over riding him more and did lessons on him almost weekly. He was definitely helping my confidence! 

Chester, Chezzy, Cheeseball, Cheddar, Cheddar bean. 

I'm so glad that we decided to remove his painful uveitis eye in 2020, even though we were devastated to know his "good" eye wasn't that good after all. We gave him - and us - more time. August 2020 to January 2022 isn't as long as we wanted, but it was more time.

Knowing it had signs of uveitis and cataracts helped us help him adjust as his eyesight dwindled. And when he started having full uveitis flares in that eye, we knew we wouldn't let it get as bad as his other eye had been. We knew better now.  

He had a pretty bad flare in early December. Just shy of about 2 months since the one before. This time he came out of the flare completely blind, at least in our opinion.  Every now and then I thought he might be able to see something but then he'd bump into the wall of his stall and struggle to find his hay pile.  

He was comfortable in his stall and his pasture and with certain people leading him, but got very nervous and scared if any of those variables changed. 

We pushed to get through the holidays, and made it. I talked myself out of it and back in a billion times. Carus distanced herself from him/the barn - though she'd been doing that for awhile, knowing what was coming. I scheduled as much of things as I could.  I made the appointment I made sure his previous family that we got him from were able to come say goodbye and that the barn family, especially those with younger kids, had a heads up. I traded shifts so that I could get the full day off and scheduled for a Friday so I could have the weekend to process. We even picked the day we'd cut off his tail, which I had washed 3 times after the decision was made in December and put up to keep it as clean as possible. Robert came with us, and the three of us were there for the full thing. 

A friend shared a poem with me for the occasion, and it was definitely true of Chezzy. His tail went in three sections - one for me, one for Carus, and one for the girl/family we got him from. Our friend Beth took a small chunk too. 

The Best Horses in Heaven, They Have No Tail
by Miska Paget

The best horses in Heaven they have no tail. This is a rule they all know without fail.

For when a new horse arrives with a short cut bob, they all know that this horse did a very good job.

His owner could not bear to part with her friend so she saved his tail, wrapped in ribbons and in braids, to hold with his memory in a very loving way.

To enter Heaven without a tail is an honor, a message, that without fail announces to everyone, far and wide that this horse was more than a wonderful ride.

But this horse was loved and cherished by one and when his time serving on this Earth was done he left behind a broken heart

and a soul from which he never will part.

(This photo wasn't from that day, but I didn't want to share the photos I have. ) 

365 in 2022

Well, that started off great. I got one post in and then forgot to update here... 

I'm updating on Facebook at least. It will be easy to do it once a week or every two weeks or something random for the month of January, but beyond that the day numbers get a little harder to keep track of - or at least take me counting to figure out. 

Gonna do a dump now cause that will catch me up and then I can try better. 

2.365 

Putting away Christmas. A day later than usual.

3.365

Milo

4.365

Orange orange

5.365

Chester

 

6.365

Gus, the Betta fish

7.365

Chewie, on his 6th birthday.

8.365

Sleepy, cuddly puppies - Milo and Chewie

9.365

Frost on weeds/plants. Feeling artsy or something.

10.365

I love the complete noodleness of puppies running. They run with their WHOLE bodies.

11.365

Being artsy again with my drying Christmas bouquet.

 

12.365

The moss growing on our retaining wall looks so much cooler than photos show.

13.365

Seed pods of Rose of Sharon bush

14.365
The big tank

15.365

Chester

16.365

Scrimpy shrimp - really cool to watch

The formatting issues - ugh. 

Maybe I'll come back and adjust it again when I'm not completely annoyed. 

But probably not. Enjoy! 

365 in 2021, days 43-49

02/12/2021

Texas froze over, most of eastern Portland metro was having horrible ice storms, and we got some snow and sleet. We still had ice but no where as bad as elsewhere. And the dogs could still play in it.  

Leia is getting quite gray now. She's 10. She still runs and plays hard, but she feels that later and will start limping and having trouble getting up.

2/13/2021

Leia used to jump up and down this retaining wall A LOT.  We call her monkey for a reason. She can jump high and really liked to even if we tried to slow her down or stop her.  

Chewie won't jump as often, but he was having a blast running through the snow playing chase and tackle with Leia and dove off the retaining wall a few times to escape her because he knows she'll only jump once. 

2/14/2021*

For Valentine's day I made chicken parmesan from scratch cause it's one of our favorite meals. We were all snowed in and we're still in a pandemic, and we don't really like going to restaurants on the busy days anyways even if they were open so it was better to chill at home.  

This is my hue shift afghan that I've been working on/not working on for like 5 years now.  I don't remember when I started it. There are four sections of the afghan, and this is the end of section one. I'm having a horrible time with this last block and have had to rip it out and start completely over 5 times. I keep dropping a stitch or forgetting a decrease or doubling the decrease or I dunno what's wrong but it's wrong. I got a little bit further than this photo and put it up for the night, and haven't had a chance to pick it up again.  I'll eventually finish it and it will be lovely. 

2/15/2021*

Us over on the west side were finally thawed enough to get the horses out. They won't get turned out when it's sleet or ice since it's miserable for them and/or they could slip and get hurt.  

If you look close you can see the rainbow right above Chester.  We had a pons at the end of the rainbow! 

2/16/2021

Cheddar ponies!

2/17/2021*

I got stuck on the couch under a Chewers. I sat down to watch a show, he curled up next to me and fell asleep and I didn't want to wake him.  

 2/18/2021*

There was another really awful stormy day, and because it just makes Chester look miserable I had them keep him in for the day.  

Since he stayed in and didn't get a lot of movement, Carus had him run around the arena a little when we went out for chores.  

He kept trying to go over and stand in the mud. Cause he's a weirdo. 

365 in 2021, days 38-42

2/7/2021

Got some new fishy friends. Two new panda corydoras, an albino blue-eyed pleco (Banana) and two cherry shrimp. These are in the bags while they acclimated to the tank temp and water. (Dot in the background is a snail.)

Now, a few weeks later, I'm back down to 3 corys (these two took me up to 5) and I have no idea why, and I can't find the shrimp. They could just be hiding, but who knows. 

2/8/2021*

I got to ride Chester and had a lesson.  

This was while we were waiting for Martha and shortly after a pretty big spook - the bushes in the corner, which are slightly visible on the left there are scary. Probably mostly the barn cats playing in them, but possibly the wind and/or a little bird/mouse moving in there too.  All the horses give it side eye once in awhile. 

  

2/9/2021*

Adam seems to be a fan of whisky. I'm liking it too.  It's a good sipping drink.  We had one a few months ago that we really liked, but couldn't remember the name. We thought it was Glenlivet, but it might have been a different year or maybe a different brand cause this wasn't quite the same.  This is good though so we took a pic to make sure we remembered it was good. Then it turned out to be the only photo I took that day so it got nominated to be in the count. 

2/10/2021*

Carus tacking up for a ride. 

2/11/2021

The Angelfish had eggs! 

It was very exciting and it makes up for the fact that I'm not getting tetra fry anymore and they might be eating my shrimp. 

They guarded and fanned water at them all day while Carus and I did some research.  They would hatch in 60 hours, so that would be about Sunday morning. This was Thursday about midday. The eggs weren't there at morning feeding so they were spawned anywhere from shortly after feeding to right before I saw them.  

We believe Fredrick is the female and Two-faced is the male as Fredrick was the one that did the most fanning and aggression towards the other fish. 

From research: Angelfish lay their eggs on a vertical surface and occasionally move them. They will fan the eggs with water and guard them from others. They will also eat them.  At 60 hours, they go from eggs to wiggler stage (where they wiggle? that's them hatching?) and then start swimming around their parents. The parents might also eat the fry at this stage or they might parent them/raise them. The photos and videos I found just had clouds of fry swimming around parents, which is amusing.  

Also from research - Angelfish (very) often eat their first spawn.  Mine did.  Thursday evening, I had this same big spawn of eggs. Friday morning - about half left. Saturday morning, less than 10 and some white which suggested not viable and by Saturday evening none.  Angelfish can spawn every 14 days, so we'll see what happens... I've decided to not try to do anything extra like putting up a mesh to protect them or remove the parents - don't have another tank anyways.  What happens in my tank happens in my tank. 

365 of 2021, days 9-18

I didn't really intend to go as long as I did before an update, it sort of just happened.  (Cell phone shots are marked with an asterisk.)

 

1/9/2021

This is my Angelfish, Two-face.

The other side of him is yellow/white, which is why I named him Two-face.  

Fish are surprisingly hard to photograph. They're much prettier in person. 

1/10/2021

Two of my four ghost catfish (or glass catfish). I purchased them as ghost but a lot of online sources call them glass.  It was also fitting that I got them in October. They shimmer when the light hits them just right and they're pretty cool looking. They're whiskers move all over when looking for food - they'll tap along the ground independently.

1/11/2021

The other side of Two-face.  

He's hunting for shrimp pellets. Or more babies. I got three baby Ember Tetras before I got the Angelfish, and I saw a new one about a month after I got them - but haven't seen any since. Pretty sure the Angels are eating the eggs/fry. Which is annoying. 

1/12/2021*

Watching Carus and Chester, which is common.  

This turned out to be a not great ride. We had a storm coming in that evening and it started to hit not long after she got in the saddle. The wind and rain was hitting the roof and the tarped side quite a bit and was making some weird/scary sounds.  Chester spooked a bit so she got off and went back to practicing showmanship as it's easier to reassure him from the ground.  Then he really spooked and she gave up. I had him calmly stand in a few of the scarier spots while we gave him loves and reassurance and then he got dinner and a bunch of cookies for being a good boy.  He's done well with losing his sight, but days like this are harder. 

1/13/2021*

The aftermath of that storm.  We lost power for a few minutes. Others lost it for hours/days. Some trees fell around the area - no injuries that I heard of though - and there was a ton of flooding.  The main road that we take to the barn has been closed for months as they rebuild the bridge, though it would have been closed for flooding anyways.  This was the next road to take - also closed for flooding. We ended up having to take the long way to the barn, and then in an attempt to go into town after leaving and not having to go the same long way back we tried another road. I should have gotten a photo of that one - we got stuck. There were cars and trucks going through without a problem, but Carus's small car definitely would not have made it.  She stopped and said nope. Then we had to figure out how to get turned around with cars behind us.  A few guys in trucks helped direct her back, into the other lane, and back some more before we cleared the line of trucks that could make it through and we could turn around. Her inexperience driving was very good here - I might have risked driving through with all the others doing okay and might have landed us in a bad situation - not completely sure what I would have done if I was driving and my car is bigger and higher up than hers too so maybe. Hopefully I don't get the chance to find out! (Although this will stick with me too and would affect my choices in the future - heh.) Carus did good. 

1/14/2021

After the storm went through we had a couple days of drier weather and clear skies which allows the sunsets to be gorgeous. Bright beautiful oranges, pinks, and reds and it's always good when I'm already outside and at the barn. Much clearer views of the lovely show. 

1/15/2021*

Just Chewie being a dork.  He was rolling around and making noise behind me as I fiddled with the DVD player - and then just froze like this and sat there for a few minutes.  He's such an adorable dork. 

1/16/2021

A current crafting project - a show shirt for Carus. 

I've wanted to make her one to rival the super flashy ones we see for sale all the time (hundreds to thousands of dollars!!) and finally figured out a path to go - there are so many designs and colors to do. 

I bought a plain black show jacket. Then we found a lovely lace flower fabric that I've cut the flowers out of and sewn them on in a pattern. I've been sewing beads onto the flowers, some shiny metallic thread, and was gluing some rhinestones on when I found out about an affordable hotfix applicator on Amazon from a crafting group. Both glues work and are creating strong bonds - but I think the hotfix ones are stronger bonds.  It's so shiny! 

1

1/17/2021*

I figured with trying to enjoy things I used to enjoy again I should maybe work on my hue shift afghan again. Maybe I'll finish it finally... 

I'm still working on the first quarter, but that's getting very close.  

I didn't get far - found I had a mistake and couldn't figure out where so I had to completely undo the square that was on the needles and start over.

1/18/2021*

Just Chewie cuddled up next to me on the couch while I edit this batch of photos.  

Bonus shot from 1/10/2021

I may not be getting any baby Ember Tetras - but I have a baby shrimp! 

I had two crystal black shrimp (Bert and Ernie), but lost one after getting the Angels. They may not be responsible for my missing shrimp and a lack of new Tetra fry, but it is definitely suspicious.  

I also had a cherry shrimp (Cherry), blue shrimp (Blueberry), yellow shrimp (Lemon), and a clear and blue shrimp (Mystery). 

The clear and blue one (Mystery) is also gone now and I rarely see the remaining crystal black one (Ernie), but I do now have this guy! They're completely clear from what I can tell and mostly hang out under the big rock. I believe Cherry is the momma as they've looked quite chunky a few times but not 100% on that.  

365 of 2021, days 1-8

I missed doing the photo a day, 365 challenge, that I was doing a few years ago, and I'm struggling with finding joy in a lot of things I used to enjoy doing. I'm trying to find it again and I'm going to attempt to do a 365 this year. 

I'm posting here - and I'll probably end up making an album on Facebook as a way to hold myself accountable.  I don't want to make it into something that creates anxiety for me, but I do want some accountability.  I also want to try to use my actual camera more often than just my cell phone.  That's a conscious effort to set aside 10ish minutes to pick up the camera, or plan to pick it up, while my cell is with me everywhere.  And this first share is heavy on the cell shots. (I'll mark them with an asterisk.)

1/1/2021

Needles from some young Douglas fir trees we have in pots in the backyard. 

1/2/2021

Fredrick, the Angelfish, in front of hornwort plant in my 55 gallon tank.  

1/3/2021*

I'm receiving Round 1 of the Moderna coronavirus vaccination.  

I was worried it would burn like the last shot I had to get (MMR booster which BURNED), but it didn't burn at all. My arm at the injection site was sore for about 2 days - mostly the first 24 hours. I'm a baby about pain and it was not bad at all.  

No other symptoms or side effects. 

Round 2 will be scheduled in a few weeks. 

(I was lucky and qualified for one of the first phases of vaccinations through my work. I may not be frontline, but our job is still important to ensuring quality patient care.)

1/4/2021 *

Photo was taken by Carus.  

It was near the end of my lesson with our friend, Martha, on Chester.  I've been trying to have more regular lessons now that Carus has graduated and is out of 4H - I don't feel like I'm messing up his training for her.  (I know I wouldn't have, but part of my mom guilt or anxiety.) 

Lessons have been going good. I feel like I'm improving steadily - and I'm trying not to be embarrassed that I still can't ride this far into our horse journey. 

(No one goes near each other and we're outside so pandemic safe activity. Also all common surfaces get disinfected by everyone after they touch them. )

1/5/2021 *

Robert and I went over to a friend's farm (Heather and Justin) to discuss a woodworking project or two he has in mind and then chatted for a bit.  No one went near others - they're fairly quarantined on their farm, we're fairly quarantined in our life/home and we were mostly outside (the shop is open). 

While chatting we got to watch their dogs play, and the super adorable Great Dane puppy, Emme, would run and slide on the concrete back and forth, back and forth. And then try to pick a fight with Dally (the cattle dog).  Tuff (the pit mix) played his role of good big brother and got as much pets as possible. 

Bailey recognized my voice and called for me - I did stop and say hi - I think we all miss each other now that we're not out there every week for Carus to practicing driving Bailey. 

1/6/2021 *

I went out to help with turn in and PM chores, and got soaked.  I hate mud season. 

I can't decide if Chester minds it or loves it.  He's always covered in mud because they roll in it all the time, but he also looks miserable when it's storming badly.  And it feels like that's all it's doing lately - just constant rain.  Especially when it's time to do barn chores. It can be nice weather all day and the second we have to be outside, STORM.  

1/7/2021

All my Christmas ornaments off the tree and ready to be organized and put away.  

I usually get Christmas put away on the 1st but this year I worked so it got delayed until I was off again and could dedicate a couple hours.  

1/8/2021

Dinner tonight - Garlic rice pilaf, steamed broccoli, and honey garlic chicken. 

I don't know how to take food photos... maybe that will improve this year...