Saturday, April 10, 2010

This is Good Exercise


Thursday morning breakfast ends at Tortillas paddock, a 16 1/2 year old who needs help getting up sometimes. I gave him a lift but he weebled and bobbed and then crashed to ground. Unlike a cat or dog who might just lay there a pig screams out in panic.. unable to get up i hoisted him up and repeated this about ten times. Unable to leave him..what am i to do? Thankfully Leanne arrived to do trim horse's hooves and she helped me load Tortilla into the lower section of a crate and onto a wheel cart. We then rolled him into Penny's big shed and got him bedded down. Exhausted he fell to sleep. Tortilla is a healthy weight at oh about 170 lbs.

What can you do for a senior pig who looses the ability to use his hind end? Well a few calls to the vet and correspondence to a friend who is a vet in the states and an email to another friend who is a homeopathic. I covered every approach here ..

Two days of diet change, one night of pain killers and on going homeopathic remedies. This mornings shock was finding Tortilla laying in a pool of blood and urine soaked cement. How he got out of his confines , but he did get up too poop and then that is when all hell broke loose for him. Thankfully the blood was a cut foot not something internal.. poor guy. What luck this would occur on a Saturday morning when help would arrive and help me get this big boy cleaned up, cozy and securely penned.

The rest of the day pretty well went the same way. A new guy doing community hours with farm experience was a blessing as he got started on the big pigs paddocks and pretty well did them all. Alex and Cesar arrived and could only stay and hour driving all this way from Surrey to rake poop too. Melissa and Sue came to help for the day and for the first time so got to work on the waters after they helped me with Tortilla until the well stopped providing us with water.

On the phone with the well repair guy i see Rose charge Mouse, enter my racing after a farm pig with one boot on and one boot off. Telephone flying in the air and falling to pieces and my well guy is still on the phone after i retrieve it and put it back together. lol.

Two guys i hired to start bush whacking started yesterday at 10am. I had to go get groceries so confirmed with them they would be here when i got back so i left pigs out and the house open. I got home at 3 , no guys, pigs out , house open, tools everywhere. No note , no call..but a brand new pitch fork bent beyond repair and tucked behind the other .. they arrive at 11:30 today to commence work. ARE YOU FRICKING KIDDING ME?????????

My sister worked with Sterling who has one more day left here doing the barn and the pasture work for the horses.

Oh and did i mention Panda man chewed a hole in the shed and ripped a few boards off so he could see what was going on here? I went out there with boards when i was ready to collapse and then realized his window had a wire fence wall in front of it. Fine leave it then until a few hours later when i saw him sticking his foot threw it so then i went and grabbed my hammer.

During which time Scotch who is in love with my horses has been chased out of the pasture three times. The carpenter arrived to look over the pen work i need done for Wilbe and comments "that's good exercise". Yea..okay like i need more exercise. But he is a good guy and unbelievable he knows what he is talking about!! They will be back tomorrow with materials and reinforcements!!

I got in at 4, took a break which was networking to try and find homes for two more pigs , ate bread, then went back out to start to feed at 6 and I am back in the house at 8 telling you all how my day went.. no the last few days..wait last week was crazy too..um i don't think the week before was any different.

2 comments:

Jean said...

Oh Janice, as exhausting and worrisome as all this sounds, your description of it made me laugh out loud! The realities of animal rescue...sad, maddening, funny, but most of all a lot of very hard work.
On a positive note, I'm glad to hear there are a few volunteers coming over to help you with the load, and I hope the working off his community service hours has LOTS of hours to fulfill. :)
Scotch, quit giving the Piggy Lady heart attacks with your fascination for Dior!

Janice Gillett said...

Oh man what a day.. and poor Melissa and Sue who combine a visit with helping out only to arrive to a multitude of catastrophes. I can tell you for sure, i was not at my best.

Thankfully they emptied out there drinking water for me before they left and i was able to brush my teeth and make a cup of coffee this morning.