Cough and a sniffle is about all that's left, thank goodness. As fast as it came, it is departing. Three days.

Spent much of the day at work finding my desk again under the new books and printed cards that had arrived Saturday and Monday. Most of that is cleared away now.

Put Tess' new halter on her this morning. It looks good and has an unexpected benefit. She sometimes pulls away from the halter on the first try, and I had figured it was because once in a while it pulls a short hair or two as it slips over her face. The new one is padded with a slippery nylon lining and it slid on before she even thought about pulling back. If she gets over that little fault, so much the better.

Only six weeks to NaNoWriMo. I need to be "training" for that, but I'm still playing catch up with the fiber stuff for the show next month. Today, though, I'm going to bed early. I think I may get to sleep all night, unlike the last three nights have been.

Tags: health, horses, work, writing
Current Location: Home in the oak grove
Mood: sleepy

I did take today off work. I had a fever this morning and was coughing a lot, so it really did make sense to reduce the risk of spreading it around if I could. Mondays are usually not heavy days so it's OK.

Tomorrow my car has a service appointment at 7:30 am so I might as well go in to work. I think I'm improving now and should be somewhat better still by then if I can sleep tonight.

The blanket for Tess came today, along with a new halter. Now I have to hunt through the stored linens for a twin size sheet I can use to cover her while trying the blanket for fit. They'll exchange it for a different size if it isn't covered with horse hair. ;p I'm pretty confident I measured right, but best to be safe I'm sure. Hopefully she has been blanketed in winter before and won't object too much. She's usually pretty calm, so I expect she'll be all right with it. If you have horses, I recommend this supplier: Schneider Saddlery. I've purchased from them several times now and they are always very fast with good prices. Everything has been good quality too.

Gary is thinking seriously about doing a full Ph.D. program in geography now. He still has scholarship funds to cover at least half of it, and figures he can get some help with the rest (probably true, he usually gets excellent grades.) I wouldn't think of discouraging him, though I worry about him driving back and forth to Dekalb in all sorts of weather.

The nutty Brit neighbors have a new dog, looks like a German Shepherd pup. He's been over here eyeing our sheep and ducks a couple of times. They also have some new chickens. Some are bantams, little black ones and very noisy. Gary says there are also some brightly colored full sized birds but I haven't seen those yet. *leans out the window and whistles for the local fox*

I really wouldn't care what animals they choose to have, except that they let everything run loose. No fences, no restraints at all. Only their horses are fenced and even those have been wandering over here a couple of times. We are very careful about keeping our animals where they belong, and have only one cat who does roam outside the property lines. He came in here as a stray from elsewhere, so he was already pretty much set in his ways.

Time to try to get some sleep if I can. Last night wasn't good. I did get a nap this afternoon but only for an hour or so.

Tags: farm, health, horses, neighbors, pets
Current Location: Home in the oak grove
Mood: tired

The cold is worse, low grade fever and very congested, but probably nothing really serious. Still, it saps all my energy. A good chunk of the day was spent on the sofa with a plush pony, doing nothing other than dozing occasionally.

It's time to cancel the stupid "war on drugs" started by the Reagan administration. It hasn't worked. The only effect I can see is that it has made it so much more difficult to buy a decent over the counter decongestant, because you might be using it as an ingredient in home made meth, see. So it's your patriotic duty to put up with a head full of rubber cement for several days where you used to be able to clear it up easily with just one little pill. The stuff marketed in place of pseudoephedrine simply doesn't work at all or at least nowhere near as well.

Tess got to go out this afternoon. I think that's all I accomplished for the entire day. At this rate, I foresee a day off work tomorrow.

Tags: farm, health, rants
Current Location: Home in the oak grove
Mood: sick

Gary saw his doctor this morning. All the blood tests and EKGs came out normal, so he is not having heart symptoms. They took him off the nitroglycerin about 2 am because (as I predicted) it gave him a headache. They've held him at the hospital for a stress test just to double check, but he should be released in an hour or two.

Thanks to everyone who expressed concern and good wishes. I do appreciate it. If any of you have some 36 hour days you could spare, I could use a couple of those. Fortunately I don't stress out as easily as Gary's family members do.

On a totally separate topic, the report is back from the weather service on Monday's tornado. It reached a strength level of EF3, which means winds up to 125-165 mph. That's just a moderately strong twister, but enough to do plenty of damage and definitely a rarity here at this time of year.

For the curious, the full report, with damage photos and charts of the storm track and wind strengths, is online here. The photos are interesting and disturbing. There were five people injured, none very seriously, but the potential for much worse is clear in those photos. Don't ignore the warning sirens, folks. When they say take cover, they MEAN it.

Tags: health, weather
Mood: relieved

So Gary's little brother had bypass surgery on Monday and seems to be recovering as nicely as they can expect. They plan to send him home by the weekend now. That's good.

I get home at 8:30 pm and Gary and his mom are sitting in the kitchen. He says "I need you to drive me to the emergency room." So I did.

Now he's hooked up to monitors and stuff there and they're keeping him overnight. He did not have a heart attack. But he was feeling tingling in his extremities and somewhat disoriented. I and the ER doc think it's stress and exhaustion. They gave him nitroglycerin and they want to put him through a stress test in the morning. The nitro relieved the cold tingling, and probably gave him a headache instead but he didn't mention that. Blood pressure, enzymes, and all that stuff are within normal ranges. Thank goodness he has a better insurance plan this time.

At least as long as his mom doesn't have an attack too, we should be OK. I'll skip work tomorrow so I can go get him when they release him. Then probably I'll end up driving her home to the city, which he would have done himself tomorrow, but I'm not letting him.

We got home at 11 pm, I made a dinner of leftovers, put mom to bed and I'm following immediately.

Tags: health
Mood: exhausted

Boy is it windy. Gusting to 45 mph or so, and the temperature is still 88°F/32°C. I brought all the horses in a bit early in case one of the hard storms with hail they keep predicting actually materializes, but so far on the radar everything is at a distance and appears to be moving northeast away from us. Still there's a tornado watch and a gale advisory.

I went out to check on Tess earlier and she came galloping to the gate expecting me to take her in. Odd behavior for her, but I thought the wind must be spooking her. I talked to her a bit and told her to wait another half hour. Sure enough, when I went back for her, she was eating grass but repeated the galloping act. When I opened the gate and put her lead on, I saw she was being followed by several large horseflies. She was actually eager to go in, and as soon as we got into the shade of the woods the flies lost track of her. Once she was safely in her stall, I gave her a going over with the fly repellent though, just in case. The wind is so strong, I expected flies and mosquitos to be literally blown away, but apparently not.

All the feed is set up for the morning, when I'll have to go out an hour earlier than usual so I can turn everyone out and clean their stalls before going to work. That way when I get home they'll be able to go right in instead of waiting for me to clean first. I used to do it that way when Dawn was still here if Gary had to be away, and it works out all right.

Still partly sunny out and I think maybe the wind is easing a bit. Perhaps it will all turn out to be a false alarm.

Went to the dentist this morning to get my teeth floated (cleaned.) They found no problems, which is good, at least for my teeth, but they didn't like my blood pressure. Neither do I, but I hate to let anyone put me on medication for it. I need to do some research on other means of control.

Tags: health, horses, weather
Current Location: Windy oak grove
Mood: thoughtful