Pinkie Has Fully Recovered!

Thank you everyone for your prayers and positive thoughts! Pinkie has fully recovered from the dreaded AHS. The swelling above her eyes has dropped totally,temps and colour normal,heave line gone. She is eating up again and actually played in her paddock yesterday...wish I had my camera on me! A lot of the times when horses get sick with AHS and their immune system is down,they also get biliary...I was very worried and check for signs all the time,but thankfully we escaped that one...

In the meantime.., I have employed a groom to help with the horses for the first time ever in my life. He is from Zimbabwe and worked with Polo horses there.. He is excellent! He knows his way around horses to say the least. He backs my young horses for me,trains and schools the youngsters and played a huge part in caring for Pinkie when she was sick..even getting up at night to check her temperature etc..Apart from the fact that he knows how to teach a horse to do flying changes correctly,his biggest virtue must be the fact that he is incredibly patient with the horses. He is the guy holding the horses in the picture. The other guy works for my daughters' boyfriend and spent 3 weeks here learning the basic aspects of horse mastership with our groom. He also learned to ride on old Bo Jest,Jessica's old CA showjumping pony. He is in retirement now but taught this would be groom the ropes with a twinkle in his eye and a cink in his tail...if you get my drift...

Another thing that makes me happy is the fact that we got the vegetable garden planted again as the worst of the hot weather is so to say over with...

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Valiant Princess Still Bravely Battling On.

Just a short note to say a big THANK YOU! to everybody for all your prayers out there. Pinkie's temp dropped to 39.1 oC this morning. Her eyes are still swollen and her appetite is slightly down, but she did squeel at me as I rubbed her stomach this morning..good job girl! I had the more hits on yesterdays post, than I ever had on any other post...lots of people Googling AHS at this time of year perhaps? Whatever the case I know a lot of prayers went out for her and I am so thankful. Today is day 6 of her battle..,hopefully she will get over this soon now. I am totally exhausted by all this worrying,lord knows how Pinkie must feel! We are not out of the woods yet by a long shot as anything can still happen,but I am being as positive as I can under these circumstances...

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African Horse Sickness

That dreaded disease hit us again for the first time in many years. 45 horses have died in the Gauteng area in a very short time. There is no cure for this disease. There is a vaccine available but it is not effective against all strains of this disease. My supreme champion Welsh Section B mare, Lemal Valiant Princess,first showed signs on Friday at lunchtime. The vet prescribed treatment including Lasix,Phynadene and pennicillen. She had a very high fever of 40-4.3 o C. Late yesterday afternoon het temp dropped to 38.3. This morning it plummeted to 36.8oC and a light sweating on the neck and she started to go cold... I put a blanket on her and now we have to wait it out. Throughout her ordeal thus far she didn't break out in a sweat until this morning. The tell tale swelling of the eyes have been present since the onset of the disease although her whole head and neck thankfully diddn't swell up yet. Her breathing is laboured today due to fluid on the lungs. Horses with AHS normally drown because of fluids in the lungs. Until this morning I was hoping she had only a light case of it...now I am scared for her...She has been fully vaccinated against the disease every year of her life by a vet and has it fully recorded on her passport,even so,lots of horses still die..I can only pray that she makes it now...

Whatever you do,do not let a horse with AHS go cold...This morning was the first time Princess showed signs of growing cold since the onset of the disease on Friday...

The tell tale swelling above the eyes.

To top off all of this,last week we had a terrible storm here,causing the electricity to go out for 14 hours and then the following day again for 12 hours while repaires were being done. In the total dark of night the python struck again...This time attacking both my whippet pups where they were sleeping in the outside laundry room. One got away with no damage the other got a chunk bitten out of its side..

Amazingly,After he got over the initial shock of the attack,Duke is none the worse for wear and running around,playing with his brother!

I hope this week will be better.

Calling on all my Blogger friends to send out prayers for Pinkie...

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Maybe The Dummest Thing I gone Done Did For 2013

Yeah,we where invited to go down the Selati River as it only "floods" once a kazillion years...It is the rainy season here and so I thought on this invitation for about 2 weeks (it took this long for the waters to subside enough to my way of thinking...) before accepting and promptly floating down this river on tractor tubes....My husband had to beg a friend of his...( foreman on a citrus farm locally) to lend him a lot of tractor tubes for all of us to go floating down this river for about 3 hours yesterday(Sunday) afternoon...What can I say but that this definitely was one of the highlights of my life,as it is not something you can up and do again next weekend as the waters will be mostly gone by then in this particular river...I fear crocodiles almost as much as I fear snakes...The owner of this farm promised me that never in 30 years has he seen a croc in this part of the river .....I said thank you,but no thank you.... they kept on inviting me...then he said my chances for 2013 down the Selati is almost gone,then my husband begged me to go....then I said, OH S@#|% ok!. Then my Hubby bought me 2 bottles of the best Chardonnay we can afford,guzzled one down my throat and I was like...."OK, bring it on  crocs!!!!" Minki said she wanted to go down the Selati too...,together with the Yorkie Kendra and Toontjies the Pavement Special...you all know that breed,don't you???

The grey haired person is me,that is Cules handing Minki her "rubber duck boat" to her...she found it too lonesome and preferred to be with either Cules or I on our tubes... There where two real life jockeys in that there river,not one but two!!! ....one of which was the winner of the 2012 South African Classic to boot!! One is the cousin of the owner of the farm and the other a friend...the tales they have to tell....The worst injury the one jockey got was in a fun charity race on Shetland ponies...his leg was fabulously broken...After a long day of that, I forced my husband to go home at 6:30 to much objection all around because some of the other women then also wanted to go wash all that sand out of those crevices they never knew they had...enough said...the biggest action of the day was still to come for us and our neighbours....

We arrived home to find an Mozambican Spitting Cobra on our front porch ready to do battle and me having to try and keep Minki safe while Cules sorted out the snake....

We phoned our neighbours to inform them about our "welcome" at home only to hear the wife frantically trying to tell us that they have just arrived to find their dogs fighting a CROCODILE IN THEIR GARAGE!!!! She said her husband told her to tell Cules sorry he tried to catch it but it got away...!!!

Such was our Sunday Evening....

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Phyton Attack

This is what we found first thing this morning

A phyton killed,then tried to swallow this young sheep ewe in the pen last night.

Obviously it was quite a large snake to have been able to kill this size lamb,but it couldn't manage to swallow the 6 month old lamb.

You can see from the slime on it's head and neck, where the snake gave up and regurgitated the lamb.

Poor thing,what a horrible,horrible way to die and that for nothing...

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More Bathroom Makeover Pics

Basin in bathroom with slipper bath.

This is the ladies' bathroom.

It's feminine.

There is loads of bubble bath and bath salts.

Body and hand lotions.

body and hand soaps.

There is also pearl necklaces and bracelets draped on the granite basin top

I made sure that men would NOT feel comfortable there...

Because they are not welcome there.....

Men use the shower bathroom...

They know they are welcome there...

 

Basin in bathroom with shower.

The pebble listelli and basin gives it a bit of a Zen feel...

The tiles in both bathrooms are the same waterproof porcelain and looks like wood,it creates a feeling of being somewhere in the bush,where giant matumi trees,ferns,rocks,waterfalls and pebbles are in abundance....like on our farm!!

I still LOVE it!

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Bathroom Makeover Pictures!

I don't know why,but it seems apparently today,after weeks of not being able to load pics on my blog,I am able to do so...so very cautiously,here is a pic of the bath in case picasa decides I can't load any other pics! After this post I shall try to load more! Happy new year to all my blogger friends and I hope you all had a awesome holiday season!