Still here...

I've been having a hard time sitting down to put together even a simple post.  I'm fine, my family is fine, my job is fine.  But the world as a whole - not so fine.  And man it is hard/scary/stressful/ etc etc watching things unfold. 

I'm trying to see this time at home as a gift and while I'm not up to any major DIY projects or anything, I've been spending a lot of time at the barn.  Which is at my house - don't worry - I'm not travelling to see my horse.  I'm torn up that so many people can't see their horses right now and I'm super grateful that I can.  I feel guilty and lucky all all at the same time. 

I've been doing a lot of stuff with Fred and even Copper has some news to share with you guys (he always tells me to not forget him on the blog! lol).

So, seeing as how this one won't have a lot of substance, I'm just going to do a list with a few pictures and notes here and there.

1. My friend was able to have the vet out for the 45 day ultrasound on our mare.  The vet confirmed everything with the foal is looking good!  Woot.  300 more days to go? 

2.  Fred managed to hurt himself and got a big cut/puncture wound on his jaw. I tried cleaning it thoroughly, but it still got infected.  *sigh*  He was due for his vaccines right at the same time, so at least the vet call was 2 birds with one stone.     It is fine now and all scabbed over and almost healed up.

**  warning - gross photo **

ewww...it was about the size of my thumb

2.  With spring arriving in these parts, we also get a lot of birds. Geese move in to the back pasture and we can hear wild turkeys all over the place, but rarely see one at my house.  Well, I can now scratch that off my list! A lone turkey wandered in to the horse's paddock and Copper ran it out of town!  lol  I was scrambling to get my camera, but didn't make it in time. 

The turkey came back the next day, but all it took was a glare from Copper and the turkey gave him a wide berth and kept moving on to greener pastures. 

That's right buster, keep moving. Copper, probably.

3. I went to Costco for supplies and they had a lot of cheese balls.  I took this picture for Stacie!

tasty pandemic snacks!

4. I took some time to get copies made of memberships, registration papers etc and put it all in a binder so I could find it.  I also cleaned up a lot of random papers and finally finished my taxes.

2020 calendar with shows...hahahaha...sob

5. I've been working Fred almost every day since I've been working at home.  We started with handwalking up and down the laneway and some lunging now that my ring is allllmmmmooooossst dry. 

Checking out the hood

The fun adventure has been taking Fred for walks in our neighbourhood.  I was a little worried he would be spooky, but since there is almost no traffic, he has been great.  We do 3-4 kms a few times a week.  

6. Cat pictures. Cause I got nothin' else! lol

A boy and his cat nip stuffed corn chip...

toe floof maintenance

I hope everyone is staying sane during this tough time!

Weekly round up: SS2020 and viruses

Well, I started this post last week, when we were just monitoring COVID-19 in my region.  It's amazing how quickly things can change in a week....  Amanda at the900facebookpony.com posted about the virus on Thursday am and I glibly commented that things here in Canada weren't too bad.

Ha!

Things sure went sideways over the course of the day Thursday and by Friday noon, all schools in the province were to be closed until April, the Prime Minister's wife tested positive for the virus and the PM was "working from home" as a precautionary measure.  Our parliament has also closed until April, so that is kind of a big deal (I live near and work in the capital city so the machinations of government affect us a lot).  Since I work for our national police force, I have had a pretty busy week and Friday was the busiest day of all. I work in public affairs tho, so its not like I'm on the front lines or anything, but it still was a hectic day.

We haven't found out yet what our work plan will be moving forward - we all have to come to work on Monday unless we hear otherwise.  My job can be done from home, so that would be ideal.  It is just such a weird situation - I remember SARS and H1N1 and it was never this bad.  I hope we can work from home as that would be the best case scenario, but you never know with our office.

I am trying not to give in to the hype and anxiety over this illness outbreak - but I can't help but worry a bit about the vulnerable population and people that may lose income because their work has been shut down.  Our government is pretty good at helping people in need and they've already announced measures to help, so that is a start.

Anyhoo - enough of the plague-talk.  I meant to do a mini-review on another book, but I didn't get around to it.  In order to help de-stress, I spent an inordinate amount of time window shopping for horse gear that I don't need!

The lure of online shopping has been strong this week, with more and more collections releasing their spring/summer colours.  I normally can resist this stuff no problem, but for some reason, I'm having a hard time this year.

It doesn't make sense for me to be tempted, really, when you look at it.  Let's look at the facts:

• I haven't sat on a horse in over a year
• I don't currently own a horse that is broke to ride
• If I were to ride, I ride western
• I'm trying to save money for shows and a foal coming next year

Yet, here I sit, clicking through the Hufglocken collection, drooling over the silver-grey and the black/whiskey and the charcoal/blue combo.  Maybe Fred needs some metallic bronze boots or chestnut snakeskin boots? OMG.  lol  What is wrong with me?  Luckily I have been able to resist, but I can't guarantee I will hold out forever!

The other thing I'm obsessed with searching for is denim breeches.  Why?  Who knows? lol  I mean likely because when I ride western, I tend to wear any normal jeans.   I don't really like or need breeches, but when I do, I want a denim pair as they are more like normal jeans??  Lol  Again, I would need to be riding to justify buying breeches, so for now I'll just keep window shopping and resist the little "add to cart" buttons everywhere.

Animo

PS of Sweden

 I hope everyone stays healthy and has no issues with work or anything!  Fingers crossed that this virus gets under control and we can all get back to normal...