No matter how many years a person has owned livestock, and with knowledge passed down from generations of livestock ownership, there is always something new just around the corner to keep life interesting

                Monday was a hectic whorl wind of a day. It started Sunday night with Molly colicing. Toni and mom lead her all night. Toni finally texted me at 4, which I did not see until 5ish, to bring the trailer down. While looking for colic remedies online Toni saw that you could haul them around and it could jiggle the air bubbly out. So I threw on some clothes and headed down. We drove her in circles until around 7, dropped Toni off at her house, because she had court starting at 9, and mom and I continued to drive her around until Sheena was open and 8. Sheena knew we were coming and met us out back. We dropped Molly off and headed home. Sheena texted me around 10 we needed to take Molly to WSU, she was getting it lined out. I had just hit 17 and was headed to work. So I turned around, woke up mom, woke up Toni (who had court after being up all night then went to bed), got the trailer, picked up mom, picked up Toni and headed to Othello. Sheena had Molly ready to go when we got there, so we got her on the trailer and headed out. It was around 1 when we got to Pullman, we had not been to the vet college since COVID, you have to call ahead now, which we had been told so we did, so they can open the gate and let you in. As we are backing up to bay 1 we had two vets, three students and a horse person waiting for us. They scooped her up and took off, mom did not even get to say goodbye, because you can no longer go back with your horse. We were sent to the waiting room. Dr Sanz came out about 15 min later to us know what that Molly had a blockage in her small intestine, which is what Sheena had already told us. I asked if Mom could go and tell her goodbye, since Molly at best case scenario would be there for 3 days. So, Dr Sanz took mom back while the intern person, Bree Brown, took down all of the info from Toni and I. We were then told that we needed a deposit, and guess what, Toni and I brought lots of snacks (our football snack bags) but no money. LOL. So, mom had to pay. We did come up with $63 in our pockets, but did not think that would work for surgery. At that point we were told Molly had at best a 50% shot, but we assured mom that the Unsinkable Molly Brown was not going down. WSU can only give statistics on horses, they couldn’t give a statistic on Molly. Toni said she had more like a 75-80% chance. We headed out and stopped in Colfax at 3 for subway and diesel. We then stopped at Dusty to pick up a new mare from Tim Johnson’s.  We thought Kaine had a football game, so started hot trotting it home, we called Ben to see what the status was and found out Kaine was not playing Monday, since he was staring on varsity on Friday. So we throttled down and stopped in Washtucna and got mom and I coffees and Toni chai tea. We got home around 5ish, Kaine and Kade got home off of the activity bus. So the boys, Toni and I did chores, then the boys headed up to do their show animal chores. Toni, Tulip and I worked on the three colts, Tulip got Rich then 2, Toni had Dual, and I had Rich. Monday night we got a call to let us know that Molly also had a twisted gut, due to the compaction, however, it was still in phase 1, so none of her intestine had died, so they did not have to cut any of it out. She got up on her own after surgery, so that is great. But the next 24 hours were very critical, that she did not get septic.

Tuesday was still raining, and season temps. We were waiting to hear an update on Molly, but no news is good news? We told Mom that a lot. Kade had his last football game, Meachams went to it, minus Jaxsen, who stayed home and helped do chores. It was the excitement of his day. Kade played a good last game. It was a tough but fun game to watch. Anna was having fun at FFA Nationals, they have gone to a lot of cool places. I worked on the colts, they all did great. We had tying practice. Jaxsen helped me dr Wild. Ben and Kade cleaned the barn when Kade got home from football. I hate that it is getting dark so early. Molly is doing good, she’s been stable, no signs of colic.  She’s still on antibiotic. She’s eating food mixed with water (which was good that she’s interested in food).

Wednesday was sunny. The kids had a half day of school Jana came up and picked up Pearl and the orange heifer. Toni had two hearings in the morning then went in to the school to pick up Kade and Jaxsen and attend Jaxsen’s parent teacher conference. He had a couple of Bs which are not acceptable so he only got four books at the book fair. The Bs were really unacceptable because they were for not turning work in that he had actually completed. That is pretty bad. (FYI, those sentences were from Toni). Kaine had football practice, Toni picked him up after parent teacher conferences. The boys did chores and worked on their show animals. Anna was still at FFA National convention. Her FFA advisor posted on FB that it was their first convention day. Update on Molly: she was doing really well, she’s eating and drinking, they took her tube out today and took her for a walk outside. She does have some fluid in her lungs so they have her on pneumonia meds, however, that isn’t uncommon for after surgery. She does still have some inflammation in her small intestine, so they are continuing to monitor that.

Thursday was sunny. Everyone went to work in the morning. Kaine had football practice, Toni took him in and picked him up. Dad was going too but ended up having to go to work. Toni, Ben and the boys bangs vaccinated heifers and semen tested the big bulls since the boys did not have school. It went really well. The cattle were all pretty good. Only one heifer was waspy, but she wasn’t that bad. The biggest issue was that the Hereford heifers are mostly out of Scrat, so they are big, and don’t move fast. They require patience. Anna was still at FFA Nationals. Toni and the boys had chores down when I got home, they went down and did them when they got done with the cows.

                Friday Kaine and I had dentist appts at noon. So we ran to Sagehill vet and picked up Absolute first thing, then took her to mom and dads. Absolute went to the vet on Monday too, but that was overlooked due to Molly. Absolute ended up having a bad strep infection. So she had to stay at Sagehill for a few days then gets another 10 days of medication. Absolute is really easy to dr and be around but is awful to load in the trailer, probably because they only time she gets loaded is to go to the vet or come home from the vet.  Then we got ready and ran to down and had lunch at Foodies in Richland. Toni and mom had been bragging about the shrimp po’boy sandwich, but they were out of shrimp. The hamburgers there were really good too. We came home after, Kade and Jaxsen were washing their steer and heifers to get ready for the show the following weekend. We went down to do chores and then at 4ish dad ran Kaine in to warm up for his game. Marlo came out and we had her lead Rich, I lead 2 and Toni lead Dual, and we took them for a walk about. Marlo, dad, Ben and I went into the varsity game. They played Royal City, it was a good game.

                Saturday the boys game down and all three washed their heifers and Jaxsen washed Joker. Then we put halters on the Spokane steers. At noon we went to Connell for the Halloween party/Grandma is 92 party, the kids had a lot of fun.  Grandma doesn’t like us telling people how old she is. She does not like to be reminded of her age either. After we did chores.

Sunday we were supposed to have someone come out and look at 2, but he rescheduled. The men and boys went hunting in the morning. Kade got a few. I worked on pictures. In the afternoon we hauled out another load of mares, weaned the mini colts again and haltered the next three, Duke, Naughty and Groot.  

I am pretty sure we are all still tired. We have found out quite a bit about Zimectrin Gold since the Molly incident. The internet is full of information that a person has to wade through. Some good info some bad. We don’t plan to continue using it in our program. Luckily we have a wonderful vet that has continued to help us through the trials and tribulations of equine ownership. And Morgan from Old Mil is going to exchange the Gold for Equimax, that Sheena is having us use instead. No matter how many years a person has owned livestock, and with knowledge passed down from generations of livestock ownership, there is always something new just around the corner to keep life interesting.