On Monday I was e-mailing someone on CL about a saddle and then found a cheaper one in the newspaper. Herbie showed it to me, all excited, and I told him that was why the paper was on the couch. Yesterday afternoon as we were watering the pasture beasties, I fetched 4 apples, one for each horse, and one for Gabriel, our Scottish Highland bull. Levi always came up first for his, and I had to go into the veggie garden to give Gabriel his, he was on the far side of the hay bale. Rubbed Levis' head and ears before moving on to treat Max, with Missy coming last. This morning, Levi was lying dead, his one back leg in the air. No trauma, no frothing, no blood. Just dead, with the others milling around him.
So now we have lost at least 1 of every animal species we have on the farm. Sad day. Gray day. Snow day.
Herbie said he'd talked to Levi yesterday, telling him that he was going to ride him as soon as we got the saddle. When he told me this, I said no wonder Levi died. He took one look at Herbie, and said to himself "you'll sit on me over my dead body, big guy".
Yesterday I cooked a spicey potato soup. From an old Mexican recipe. Sort of followed it and then went off and added cardamon for sweetness, molassas, raw jalepeno peppers, cloves, garlic, ginger, mustard powder, and other herbs and spices. Smelt great and although I could feel the heat in my mouth and at the back of my throat, Herbie couldn't. It had mellowed today, but still yummy.
Bought eggs today from the grocery store. The first time in years, but as Herbie pointed out, this is doubly wrong as we have over 100 chickens ! Think I need to have a serious talk to the girls about my expectations, and if they wish to see another Spring from a live status and not from inside Freezer Camp, they'd better up their game. Haven't found an egg in a week, even the girl who used to lay on the chair in the lower barn everyday, has stopped.